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June 2, 1894, Siil)S(;ription Price, $2.50 


HIS PEOPLE 


'Author of “ The Chief Factor” “ A Pardon- 
able Liar 'Afrs. Falchion” 

“ The Filibuster,” etc. 


Bsacd Semi-Monthly. Entered at the Post-Office at TTew York as second-class matter 

Wtek FENELON collier. Publisher. 523 W. 13th St.. iJ.X, 





; “ WORTH A GUINEA A BOX.” 


DISORDERED LIVER, ETC. ] 


They Act Like Magic on the Vital Organs, i 
Regulating the Secretions, restoring long lost i 
Complexion, bringing back the Keen Edge of ^ 
Appetite, and arousing with the ROSEBUD OF ^ 
HEALTH the whole physical energy of the ^ 
human frame.. These Facts are admitted by ^ 
thousands, in all classes of Society. Largest ^ 
Sale in the World. J 


Covered with a Tasteless & Soluble Coating. 


Of all druggists. Price 25 cents a box. 
New York Depot, 365 Canal St. 3 


PIERRE AND HIS 
PEOPLE 


GILBERT PARKER 

Author vf *^The Chief Factor,” Pardonable Liar,” 
3£rs. Falchion,” ^^The Filibuster,” etc. 


1 - 


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Entered according to Act of Congresa, in the year 1894, by 
Gilbert Parker 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington 


1 ) 



is the story of the way people 
gain Flesh and Strength and recov- 
er from Coughs, Colds and Lung 
Diseases by taking 


of Cod-Liver Oil, with hypophos- 
phites of lime and soda. No mys- 
tery about it, however; simply a 
food rich in nourishment. Physioians^ 
the world over, endorse it. 


Wlien suffering from a weak, emaci- 
ated condition you should take Scott’s 
Emulsion ai once to avoid disease. 




CONTENTS. 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS . . 7 


god’s garrison 33 

A HAZARD OF THE NORTH 42 

A PRAIRIE VAGABOND 77 

SHE OP THE TRIPLE CHEVRON 86 

THREE OUTLAWS 146 

^ SHON M'GANN’S TOBOGGAN RIDE .... 156 

^ PERE CHAMPAGNE 185 

r THE SCARLET HUNTER 94 

THE STONE 220 

THE TALL MASTER 231 

THE CRIMSON FLAG 254 

THE FLOOD 264 

IN PIPI VALLEY 276 

THE CIPHER 302 

A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES . . . . . . 313 
A SANCTUARY OP THE PLAINS . . . o 323 


( 3 ) 


NOTE. 


It is possible that a Note on the country por- 
trayed in these stories may be in keeping. Until 
1870, the Hudson’s Bay Company — first granted 
its charter by King Charles II. — practically ruled 
that vast region stretching from the fiftieth par^ 
allel of latitude to the Arctic Ocean ; — a handful 
of adventurous men intrenched in Forts and 
Posts, yet trading with, and mostly peacefully 
conquering, many savage tribes. Once the sole 
master of the North, the H. B. C. (as it is famil- 
iarly called) is reverenced by the Indians and 
half-breeds as much as, if not more than, the 
Government established at Ottawa. It has had 
its Ports within the Arctic Circle ; it has suc- 
cessfully exploited a country larger than the 
United States. The Red River Valley, the Sas- 
katchewan Valley, and British Columbia, are 
now belted by a great railway, and given to the 
plow ; but in the far north, life is much the same 
as it was a hundred years ago. There the trap- 
per, clerk, trader, and factor, are cast in the 
mold of another century, though possessing the 
( 4 ) 


NOTE. 


5 


acuter energies of this. The voyageur and 
courier de hois still exist, though, generally, 
under less picturesque names. 

The bare story of the hardy and wonderful 
career of the adventurers trading in Hudson’s 
Bay — of whom Prince Rupert was once chiefest 
— and the life of the prairies, may be found in his- 
tories and books of travel ; but their romances, 
the near narratives of individual lives, have 
waited the telling. In this book I have tried to 
feel my way toward the heart of that life; — 
worthy of being loved by all British men, for 
it has given honest graves to gallant fellows of 
our breeding. Imperfectly, of course, I have 
done it ; but there is much more to be told. 

When I started Pretty Pierre on his travels, I 
did not know — nor did he — how far or wide his 
adventures and experiences would run. They 
have, however, extended from Quebec in the east 
to British Columbia in the west, and from the 
Cypress Hills in the south to the Coppermine 
River in the north. With a less adventurous 
man we had had fewer happenings. His faults 
were not of his race — that is, French and Indian 
— nor were his virtues; they belong to all peo- 
ples. But the expression of these is affected by 
the country itself. Pierre passes through this 
series of stories, connecting them, as he himself 
connects two races, and here and there links the 
past of the Hudson’s Bay Company with more 
modern life and Canadian energy pushing north- 
ward. Here is something of romance “pure and 
simple,” but also traditions and character, which 


6 


NOTE. 


are the single property of this austere but not 
cheerless heritage of our race. 

All of the tales have appeared in Magazines 
and Journals — namely, the National Observer, 
Macmillan^ s, the National Beviezv, and the 
English Illustrated ; and the Independent of 
New York. By the courtesy of the proprietors 
of these I am permitted to republish. 

G. P, 

Harpenden, 

Hertfordshire, 

July., 1892. 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


The Patrol of the Cypress Hills. 

‘‘He’s too ha’sh,” said old Alexander Wind- 
sor, as he shut the creaking door of the store 
after a vanishing figure, and turned to the big 
iron stove with outstretched hands; hands that 
were cold both summer and winter. He was 
of lean and frigid make. 

“Sergeant Fones is too ha’sh,” he repeated, 
as he pulled out the damper and cleared away 
the ashes with the iron poker. 

Pretty Pierre blew a quick, straight column 
of cigarette smoke into the air, tilted his chair 
back, and said: “I do not know what you mean 
by ‘ha’sh,’ but he is the devil. Eh, well, there 
•was more than one devil made sometime in the 
North- West.” He laughed softly. 

‘ ‘That gives jmu a chance in history. Pretty 
Pierre,” said a voice from behind a pile of 
woolen goods and buffalo skins in the center 
of the floor. The owner of the voice then 
walked to the window. He scratched some 
frost from the pane and looked out to where 
the trooper in dog-skin coat, and gauntlets, and 
cap, was mounting his broncho. The old man 

( 7 ) 


8 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


came and stood near the young man — the owner 
of the voice — and said again: “He’s too ha’sh.” 

^^Harsh you mean, father,” added the other. 

“Yes, harsh you mean, Old Brown Windsor 
— quite harsh,” said Pierre. 

Alexander Windsor, storekeeper and general 
dealer, was sometimes called “Old Brown Wind- 
sor” and sometimes “Old Aleck,” to distin- 
guish him from his son, who was known as 
“Young AJeck. ” 

As the old man walked back again to the 
stove to warm his hands. Young Aleck con- 
tinued: “He does his duty: that’s ail. If he 
doesn’t wear kid gloves while at it, it’s his 
choice. He doesn’t go beyond his duty. You 
can bank on that. It would be hard t'o exceed 
that way out here.” 

“True, Young Aleck, so true; but then he 
wears gloves of iron, of ice. That is not good. 
Sometime the glove will be too hard and cold on 
a man’s shoulder, and then! — Well, I should 
like to be there,” said Pierre, showing his white 
teeth. 

Old Aleck shivered', and held his fingers 
where the stove was red hot. 

The young man did not hear this speech ; he 
was watching Sergeant Pones as he rode toward 
the Big Divide. Presently he said: “He’s go- 
ing toward Humphrey’s place. I — ” He 
stopped, bent his brov/s, caught one corner 
cf his slight mustache between his teeth, and 
did not stir a muscle until the Sergeant had 
passed over the Divide. 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 9 


Old Aleck was meanwhile dilating upon his 
theme before a passive listener. But Pierre was 
only passive outwardly. Besides hearkening to 
the father’s complaints he was closely watching 
the son. Pierre was clever, and a good actor. 
He had learned the power of reserve and out- 
ward immobility. The Indian in him helped 
him there. He had heard what Young Aleck 
had just muttered j but to the man of the cold 
fingers he said: “You keep good whisky in 
spite of the law and the iron glove, Old 
Aleck.” To the young man: “And you can 
drink it so free, eh. Young Aleck?” The 
half-breed looked out of the corners of his eyes 
at the young man, but he did not raise the peak 
of his fur cap in doing so, and his glances askance 
were not seen. 

Young Aleck had been writing something 
with his finger-nail on the frost of the pane, 
over and over again. When Pierre spoke to him 
thus he scratched out the word he had written, 
with what seemed unnecessary force. But in 
one corner it remained : “Mab — ” 

Pierre added : “That is what they say ai*llum- 
phrey’s ranch.” 

“Who says that at Humphrey’s? — Pierre, you 
lie!” was the sharp and threatening reply. The 
significance of this last statement had been often 
attested on the prairies by the piercing emphasis 
of a six-chambered revolver. It was evident 
that Young Aleck was in earnest. Pierre’s 
eyes glowed in the shadoyvV but he idly re- 
plied : 


10 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“I do not remember quite who said it. Well, 
mon ami, perhaps I lie; perhaps. Sometimes 
we dream things, and these dreams are true. 
You call it a lie — Men! Sergeant Fones, he 
dreams perhaps Old Aleck sells whisky against 
the law to men you call whisky runners, some- 
times to Indians and half-breeds — half-breeds 
like Pretty Pierre. That was a dream of Ser- 
geant Fones ; but you see he believes it true. It 
is good sport, eh? Will you not take — what is 
it? — a silent partner? Yes; a silent partner, 
Old Aleck. Pretty Pierre has spare time, a 
little, to make money for his friends and for 
himself, eh?’’ 

When did not Pierre have time to spare? He 
was a gambler. Unlike the majority of half- 
breeds, he had a pronounced French manner, 
nonchalant and debonair. The Indian in him 
gave him coolness and nerve. His cheeks had a 
tinge of delicate red under their whiteness, like 
those of a woman. That was why he was called 
Pretty Pierre. The country had, however, felt 
a kind of weird menace in the name. It was 
used to snakes whose rattle, gave notice of ap- 
proach or signal of danger. But Pretty Pierre 
was like the death-adder, small and beautiful, 
silent and deadly. At one time he had made a 
secret of his trade, or thought he was doing so. 
In those days he was often to be seen at David 
Humphrey’s home, and often in talk with Mab 
Humphrey; but it was there one night that the 
man who was ha’sh gave him his true character, 
with much candor and no comment. 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 11 


Afterward Pierre was not seen at Humphrey’s 
ranch. Men prophesied that he would have re- 
venge some day on Sergeant Pones ; but he did 
not show anything on which this opinion could 
be based. He took no umbrage at being called 
Pretty Pierre the gambler. But for all that he 
was possessed of a devil. 

Young Aleck had inherited some money 
through his dead mother from his grand- 
father, a Hudson’s Bay factor. He had been 
in the East for some years, and when he came 
back he brought his ^‘little pile” and an im- 
pressionable heart with him. The former, 
Pretty Pierre and his friends set about to 
win; the latter, Mab Humphrey won without 
the trying. Yet Mab gave Young Aleck as 
much as he gave her. More. Because her 
love sprang from a simple, earnest and un- 
contaminated life. Her purity and affection 
were being played against Pierre’s designs and 
Young Aleck’s weakness. With Aleck cards 
and liquor went together. Pierre seldom drank. 

But what of Sergeant Pones? If the man 
that knew him best — the Commandant — had 
been asked for his history, the reply would 
have been: “Five years in the Service, rigid 
disciplinarian, best non-commissioned officer on 
the Patrol of the Cypress Hills.” That was 
all the Commandant knew. 

A soldier-policeman’s life on the frontier is 
rough, solitary, and severe. Active duty and 
responsibility are all that makes it endurable. 
To few is it fascinating. A free and thought- 


12 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


fill nature would, however, find much in it, in 
spite of great hardships, to give interest and 
even pleasure. The sense of breadth and vast- 
ness, and the inspiration of pure air could be 
a very gospel of strength, beauty and courage, 
to such a one — for a time. But was Sergeant 
Fones such a one? The Commandant’s scorn- 
ful reply to a question of the kind would have 
been: “He is the best soldier on the Patrol.” 

And so with hard gallops here and there after 
the refugees of crime or misfortune, or both, 
who fled before them like deer among the passes 
of the hills, and, like deer at bay, often fought 
like demons to the death; with border watch- 
ings, and protection and care and vigilance of 
the Indians; with hurried marches at sunrise, 
the thermometer at fifty degrees below zero 
often in winter, and open camps beneath the 
stars, and no camp at all, as often as not, 
winter and summer; with rough barrack fun 
and parade and drill and guard of prisoners; 
and with chances now and then to pay hom- 
age to a woman’s face — the Mounted Force 
grew full of the Spirit of the West and be- 
came brown, valiant, and hardy, with wind, 
and weather. Perhaps some of them longed 
to touch, oftener than they did, the hands of 
children, and to consider more the faces of 
women — for hearts are hearts even under a 
belted coat of red on the Fiftieth Parallel — 
but men of nerve do not blazon their feelings. 

No one would have accused Sergeant Fones 
of having a heart. Men of keen discernment 


THE PATKOL OP THE CYPRESS HILLS. 13 


would have seen in him the little Bismarck of 
the Mounted Police. His name carried further 
on the Cypress Hills Patrol than any other; 
and yet his officers could never say that he 
exceeded his duty or enlarged upon the orders 
he received. He had no sympathy with crime. 
Others of the force might wink at it; but his 
mind appeared to sit severely upright upon the 
cold platform of Penalty, in beholding breaches 
of the Statutes. He would not have rained 
upon the unjust as the just if he had had the 
directing of the heavens. As Private Gellatly 
put it: “Sergeant Pones has the fear o’ God in 
his heart, and the law of the land across his 
saddle, and the newest breech-loading at that! ” 
He was part of the great machine of Order, 
the servant of J ustice, the sentinel in the ves- 
tibule of Martial Law. His interpretation of 
duty worked upward as downward. Officers 
and privates were acted on by the force known 
as Sergeant Pones. Some people, like Old 
Brown Windsor, spoke hardly and openly of 
this force. There were three people who never 
did — Pretty Pierre, Young Aleck and Mab 
Humphrey. Pierre hated him; Young Aleck 
admired in him a quality lying dormant in 
himself — decision; Mab Humphrey spoke un- 
kindly of no one. Besides — but no! 

Vv^hat was Sergeant Pones’s country? No 
one knew. Where had he come from? No one 
asked him more than once. He could talk Prench 
with Pierre — a kind of Prench that sometimes 
made the undertone of red in the Prenchman’s 


14 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


cheeks darker. He had been heard to speak 
German to a German prisoner, and once when 
a gang of Italians were making trouble on a 
line of railway under construction, he arrested 
the leader, and, in a few swift, sharp v/ords in 
the language of the rioters, settled the business. 
He had no accent that betrayed his nationality. 

He had been recommended for a commission. 
The officer in command had hinted that the ser- 
geant might get a Christmas present. The officer 
had further said: “And if it was something 
that both you and the patrol would be the better 
for, you couldn’t object, sergeant.” But the 
sergeant only saluted, looking steadily into the 
eyes of the officer. That was his reply. 

Private Gellatly, standing without, heard 
Sergeant Pones say, as he passed into the open 
air, and slowly bared his forehead to the winter 
sun: “Exactlj^” 

And Private Gellatly cried with revolt in his 
voice: “Divils me own, the word that a’t to 
have been full o’ joy was like the clip of a rifle 
breech.” 

Justice in a new country is administered with 
promptitude and vigor, or else not administered 
at all. Where an officer of the Mounted Police- 
Soldiery has all the powers of a magistrate, the 
law’s delay and the insolence of office has little 
space in which to work. One of the commonest 
slips of virtue in the Canadian West was selling 
whisky contrary to the law of prohibition v/hich 
prevailed. Whisky runners were land smug- 
glers. Old Brown Windsor had, somehow, got 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 15 


the reputation of being connected with th^ 
whisky runners; not a very respectable busi- 
ness, and thought to be dangerous. Whisky 
runners were inclined to resent intrusion on 
their privacy, with a touch of that biting in- 
hospitableness which a moonlighter of Kentucky 
uses toward an inquisitive, unsj’-mpathetic mar- 
shal. On the Cypress Hills Patrol, however, 
the erring servants of Bacchus were having 
a hard time of it. Vigilance never slept there 
in the days of which these lines bear record. 
Old Browm Windsor had, in words, freely 
espoused the cause of the sinful. To the care- 
less spectator it seemed a charitable siding with 
the suffering; a proof that the old man’s heart 
was not so cold as his hands. Sergeant Fones 
thought differently, and his mission had just 
been to warn the storekeeper that there was 
menacing evidence gathering against him, and 
that his friendship with Golden Feather, the 
Indian Chief, had better cease at once. Ser- 
geant Fones had a way of putting things. Old 
Brown Windsor endeavored for a moment to be 
sarcastic. This was the brief dialogue in the 
domain of sarcasm ; 

“I s’pose you just lit round in a friendly sort 
of way, hopin’ that I’d kenoodle with you 
later.” 

“Exactly.” 

There was an unpleasant click to the word. 
The old man’s hands got colder. He had noth- 
ing more to say. 

Before leaving, the sergeant said something 


16 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


quietly and quickly to Young Aleck. Pierre 
observed, but could not hear. Young Aleck 
was uneasy; Pierre was perplexed. The ser- 
geant turned at the door, and said in French : 
“What are your chances for a Merry Christmas 
at Pardon’s Drive, Pretty Pierre?” Pierre said 
nothing. He shrugged his shoulders, and, as 
the door closed, muttered: “JZ est le diahle.^^ 
And he meant it. What should Sergeant Fones 
know of that intended meeting at Pardon’s 
Drive on Christmas Day? And if he knew, 
what then? It was not against the law to play 
eucher. Still it perplexed Pierre. Before the 
Windsors, father and son, however, he was, as 
we have seen, playfully cool. 

After quitting Old Brown Windsor’s store, 
Sergeant Pones urged his stout broncho to a 
quicker pace than usual. The broncho was, 
like himself, wasteful of neither action nor 
affection. The sergeant had caught him wild 
and independent, had brought him in, broken 
him, and taught him obedience. They under- 
stood each other; perhaps they loved each ether. 
But about that even Private Gellatly had views 
in common with the general sentiment as to the 
character of Sergeant Pones. The private re- 
marked once on this point: “Sarpints alive! 
the heels of the one and the law of the other 
is the love of them. They’ll weather together 
like the Divil and Death.” 

The sergeant was brooding; that was not 
like him. He was hesitating ; that was less like 
him . He turned his broncho round as if to cross 


THE PATROL OP THE CYPRESS HILLS. 17 


the Big Divide and to go back to Windsor’s 
store; but he changed his mind again, and rode 
on toward David Humphrey’s ranch. He sat 
as if he had been born in the saddle. His was 
a face for the artist, strong and clear, and hav- 
ing a dominant expression of force. The eyes 
were deep-set and watchful. A kind of disdain 
might be traced in the curve of the short upper 
lip, to which the mustache was clipped close — a 
good fit, like his coat. The disdain was more 
marked this morning. 

The first part of his ride had been seen by 
Young Aleck, the second part by Mab Hum- 
phrey. Her first thought on seeing him was 
one of apprehension for Young Aleck and those 
of Young Aleck’s name. iJue knew that people 
spoke of her lover as a ne’er-do-weel ; and that 
they associated his name freely with that of 
Pretty Pierre and his gang. She had a dread 
of Pierre, and, only the night before, she had de- 
termined to make one last great effort to save 
Aleck, and if he would not be saved — strange 
that, thinking it all over again, as she watched 
the figure on horseback coming nearer, her mind 
should swerve to what she had heard of Ser- 
geant Fones’s expected promotion. Then she 
fell to wondering if any one had ever given 
him a real Christmas present; if he had any 
friends at all; if life meant anything more to 
him than carrying the law of the land across his 
saddle. Again he suddenly came to her in a 
new thought, free from apprehension, and as the 
champion of her cause to defeat the half-breed 


18 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and his gang, and save Aleck from present dan- 
ger or future perils. 

She was such a woman as prairies nurture; in 
spirit broad and thoughtful and full of energy; 
not so deep as the mountain woman, not so im- 
aginative, but with more persistency, more dar- 
ing. Youth to her was a warmth, a glory. She 
hated excess and lawlessness, but she could un- 
derstand it. She felt sometimes as if she must 
go far away into the unpeopled spaces, and 
shriek out her soul to the stars from the full- 
ness of too much life. She supposed men had 
feelings of that kind, too, but that they fell 
to playing cards and drinking instead of cry- 
ing to the stars. Still, she preferred her 
way. 

Once, Sergeant Fones, on leaving the house, 
said grimly after his fashion: “Not Mab but 

Ariadne — excuse a soldier’s bluntness 

Good-by! ” and with a brusque salute he had 
ridden away. What he meant she did not 
know and could not ask. The thought in- 
stantly came to her mind : Not Sergeant Fones; 
but — who? She wondered if Ariadne was born 
on the prairie. What knew she of the girl who 
helped Theseus, her lover, to slay the Minotaur? 
What guessed she of the Slopes of Naxos? How 
old was Ariadne? Twenty? — For that was Mab’s 
age. Was Ariadne beautiful? — She ran her fin- 
gers loosely through her short brown hair, wav- 
ing softly about her Greek-shaped head, and 
reasoned that Ariadne must have been present- 
able or Sergeant Fones would not have made 


THE PATROL OP THE CYPRESS HILLS. 19 


the comparison. She hoped Ariadne could ride 
well, for she could. 

But how white the world looked this morn- 
ing! and how proud and brilliant the sky! 
Nothing in the plane of vision but waves of 
snow stretching to the Cypress Hills; far to 
the left a solitary house, with its tin roof flash- 
ing back the sun, and to the right the Big Di- 
vide. It was an old-fashioned winter, not one 
in which bare ground and sharp winds make 
life outdoors inhospitable. Snow is hospitable 
— clean, impacted snow; restful and silent. But 
there is one spot in the area of whit©, on which 
Mab’s eyes are fixed now, with something dif- 
ferent in them from what had been there. Again 
it was a memory with which Sergeant Fones 
was associated. One day in the summer just 
past she had watched him and his company put 
away to rest under the cool sod, where many 
another lay in silent company, a prairie wan- 
derer, some outcast from a better life gone by. 
Afterwards, in her home, she saw the sergeant 
stand at the window, looking out toward the 
spot where the waves in the sea of grass were 
more regular and greener than elsewhere, and 
were surmounted by a high cross. She said to 
him — for she of all was never shy of his stern 
ways : “Why is the grass always greenest therey 
Sergeant Fones?’’ 

He knew what she meant, and slowly said: 
“It is the Barracks of the Free.” 

She had no views of life save those of duty 
and work and natural joy and loving a ne’er- 


20 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


do-weel, and she said: ‘‘I do not understand 
that.” 

And the sergeant replied : Free among the 

Dead like unto them that are wounded and lie 
in the grave, who are out of remembrance.'*^ 

But Mab said again: “Ido not understand 
that either.” 

The sergeant did not at once reply. He 
stepped to the door and gave a short com^ 
mand to some one without, and in a moment 
his company was mounted in line; handsome, 
dashing fellows; one the son of an English 
nobleman, one the brother of an eminent Cana- 
dian politician, one related to a celebrated En- 
glish dramatist. He ran his eye along the line, 
then turned to Mab, raised his cap with machine- 
like precision, and said : “No, I suppose you do 
not understand that. Keep Aleck Windsor from 
Pretty Pierre and his gang. Good-by.” 

Then he mounted and rode away. Every 
other man in the company looked back to 
where the girl stood in the doorway; he did 
not. Private Gellatly said, with a shake of the 
head, as she was lost to view: “Devils bestir 
me, what a widdy she’ll make!” It was un- 
derstood that Aleck Windsor and Mab Hum- 
phrey were to be married on the coming New 
Year’s Day. What connection was there be- 
tween the words of Sergeant Pones and those of 
Private Gellatly? None, perhaps. 

Mab thinks upon that day as she looks out, 
this December morning, and sees Sergeant Pones 
dismounting at the door. David Humphrey, 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 21 


who is outside, offers to put up the sergeant’s 
horse; but he says: “No, if you’ll hold him 
just a moment, Mr. Humphrey, I’ll ask for a 
drink of something warm, and move on. Miss 
Mab is inside, I suppose?” 

“She’ll give you a drink of the best to be had 
on your patrol, sergeant,” was the laughing 
reply. 

“Thanks for that, but tea or coffee is good 
enough for me,” said the sergeant. Entering, 
the coffee was soon in the hand of the hardy 
soldier. Once he paused in his drinking and 
scanned Mab’s face closely. Most people would 
have said the sergeant had an affair of the law 
in hand, and was searching the face of a crim- 
inal ; but most people are not good at interpre- 
tation. Mab was speaking to the chore-girl at 
the same time and did not see the look. If she 
could have defined her thoughts when she, in 
turn, glanced into the sergeant’s face, a moment 
afterward, she would have said: “Austerity 
fills this man. Isolation marks him for its 
own.” In the eyes were only purpose, de- 
cision, and command. Was that the look 
that had been fixed upon her face a moment 
ago? It must have been. His features had 
not changed a breath. Mab began their talk. 

“They say you are to get a Christmas pres- 
ent of promotion. Sergeant Fones.” 

“I have not seen it gazetted,” he answered, 
enigmatically. 

“You and your friends will be glad of it.” 

“I like the service.” 


22 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“You will have more freedom with a cohi- 
mission. ’ ’ 

He made no reply, but rose and walked to 
the window, and looked out across the snow, 
drawing on his gauntlets as he did so. 

She saw that he was looking where the grass 
in summer v/as the greenest ! 

He turned and said: “I am going to barracks 
now. I suppose Young Aleck will be in quar- 
ters here on Christmas Day, Miss Mab?” 

“I think so,” and she blushed. 

“Did he say he would be here?” 

“Yes.” 

“Exactly.” 

He looked toward the coffee. Then : 

“Thank you. . . . Good-by.” 

“Sergeant?” 

“Miss Mab!” 

“Will you not come to us on Christmas Day?” 

His eyelids closed swiftly and opened again. 

“I shall be on duty.” 

“And promoted?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“And merry and happy?” — she smiled to her- 
self to think of Sergeant Fones being merry and 
happy. 

“Exactly.” 

The word suited him. 

He paused a moment with his fingers on the 
latch, and turned round as if to speak ; pulled 
off his gauntlet, and then as quickly put it on 
again. Had he meant to offer his hand in good- 
by? He had never been seen to take the hand 


THE PATROL OP THE CYPRESS HILLS. 23 


of any one except with the might of the law 
visible in steel. 

He opened the door with the right hand, but 
turned round as he stepped out, so that the left 
held it while he faced the warmth of the room 
and the face of the girl. 

The door closed. 

Mounted, and having said good-by to Mr. 
Humphrey, he turned toward the house, raised 
his cap with soldierly brusqueness, and rode 
away in the direction of the barracks. 

The girl did not watch him. She was think- 
ing of Young Aleck, and of Christmas Day, now 
near. 

The sergeant did not look back. 

Meantime the party at Windsor’s store was 
broken up. Pretty Pierre and Young Aleck 
had talked together, and the old man had heard 
his son say: “Remember, Pierre, it is for the 
last time.” 

Then they talked after this fashion : 

“Ah, I know, mon ami; for the last time! 
Eh, Men ! You will spend Christmas Day with 
us too — No? You surely will not leave us on 
the day of good fortune? Where better can 
you take your pleasure — for the last time? 
One day is not enough for farewell. Two, 
three ; that is the magic number. You will, 
eh? — no? Well, well, you will come to-mor- 
row — and — eh, mon ami^ where do you go the 
next day? Oh, pardon^ I forgot, you spend 
the Christmas Day — I know. And the clay of 
the New Year? Ah, Young Aleck, that is 


24 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 

what they say — the devil for the devil’s luck. 
So!” 

“Stop that, Pierre.” There was fierceness in 
the tone. “I spend the Christmas Day where 
you don’t, and as I like, and the rest doesn’t 
concern you. I drink with you, I play with 
you — Men ! As you say yourself, bie7i ! isn’t 
that enough?” 

^‘Pardon ! We will not quarrel. No; we 
spend not the Christmas Day after the same 
fashion, quite; then, to-morrow at Pardon’s 
Drive! Adieu!” 

Pretty Pierre went out of one door, a male- 
diction between his white teeth, and Aleck went 
cut of another door with a malediction upon his 
gloomy lips. But both maledictions were leveled 
at the same person. Poor Aleck ! 

“Poor Aleck!” That is the way we some- 
times think of a good nature gone awry; one 
that has learned to say cruel maledictions to it- 
self, and against which demons hurl their deadly 
maledictions, too. Alas, for the ne’er-dc-weel ! 

That night a stalwart figure passed from 
David Humphrey’s door, carrying with him 
the warm atmosphere of a good woman’s love. 
The chilly outer air of the world seemed not to 
touch him. Love’s curtains were drawn so close. 
Had one stood within “the Hunter’s Boom,” as 
it was called, a little while before, one would 
have seen a man’s head bowed before a woman, 
and her hand smoothing back the hair from the 
handsome brow where dissipation had drawn 
some deep lines. Presently the hand raised 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 25 


the head until the eyes of the woman looked 
full into the eyes of the man. 

‘‘You will not go to Pardon’s Drive again, 
will you, Aleck?” 

“Never again after Christmas Da}", Mab. 
But I must go to-morrow. I have given my 
word.” 

“I know. To meet Pretty Pierre and all the 
rest, and for what? Oh, Aleck, isn’t the sus- 
picion about your father enough, but you must 
put this on me as well?” 

“My father must suffer for his wrong-doing 
if he does wrong, and I for mine.” 

There was a moment’s silence. He bowed his 
head again. 

“And I have done wrong to us both. Forgive 
me, Mab.” 

She leaned over and fondled his hair. “I 
forgive you, Aleck.” 

A thousand new thoughts were thrilling 
through him. Yet this man had given his word 
to do that for which he must ask forgiveness of 
the woman he loved. But to Pretty Pierre, for- 
given or unforgiven, he would keep his word^ 
She understood it better them most of those who 
read this brief record can. Every sphere has its 
coda of honor and duty peculiar to itself. 

“You will come to me on Christmas morning, 
Aleck?” 

“I will come on Christmas morning.” 

“And no more after that of Pretty Pierre?” 

“And no more of Pretty Pierre.” 


26 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


She trusted him ; but neither could reckon with . 
unknown forces. 

Sergeant Fones, sitting in the barracks in talk 
with Private Gellatly, said at that moment in a 
swift silence — ‘ ‘ Exactly. ’ ^ 

Pretty Pierre, at Pardon’s Drive, drinking a 
glass of brandy at that moment, said to the ceil- 
ing: 

“No more of Pretty Pierre after to-morrow 
night, monsieur ! Bien ! If it is for the last 
time, then it is for the last time. So .... so! ” 

He smiled. His teeth were amazingly white. 

The stalwart figure strode on under the stars^ 
the white night a lens for visions of days of re- 
joicing to come. All evil was far from him. The 
dolorous tide rolled back in this hour from his/ 
life, and he reveled in the light of a new day. 

“When I’ve played my last card to-morrow 
night, with Pretty Pierre, I’ll begin the world 
again,” he whispered. 

And Sergeant Fones in the barracks said just 
then, in response to a further remark of Pri vate 
Gellatly — ‘ ‘ Exactly. ’ ’ 

Young Aleck is singing now : 

“Out from your vineland come 
Into the prairies wild ; 

Here will we make our home — 

Father, mother, and child ; 

Come, my love, to our home^ — 

Father, mother, and child, 

Father, mother, andi— ” 

He fell to thinking again — ^‘and child — and 
child” — it was in his ears and in Ms heart. 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 27 


But Pretty Pierre was singing softly to him- 
self in the room at Pardon’s Drive: 

“Three good friends with the wine at night — 

Vive la compagnie ! 

Two good friends when the sun grows bright — 

Vive la compagnie ! 

Vive la, vive la, vive I’amour! 

Vive la, vive la, vive I’amour ! 

Three good friends, two gQod friends — 

Vive la compagnie !“ 

What did it mean? 

Private Gellatly was cousin to Idaho Jack, 
and Idaho Jack disliked Pretty Pierre, though 
he had been one of the gang. The cousins had 
seen each other lately, and Private Gellatly had 
had a talk with the man who was ha’sh. It may 
be that others besides Pierre had an idea of what 
it meant. 

In the house at Pardon’s Drive the next night 
sat eight men, of whom three were Pretty Pierre, 
Young Aleck, and Idaho Jack. Young Aleck’s 
face was flushed with bad liquor and the worse 
excitement of play. This was one of the im- 
reckoned forces. Was this the man that sang 
the tender song under the stars last night? 
Pretty Pierre’s face was less pretty than usual ; 
the cheeks were pallid, the eyes were hard and 
cold. Once he looked at his partner as if to say, 
“Not yet. ’ ’ Idaho J ack saw the look ; he glanced 
at his watch; it was eleven o’clock. At that 
moment the door opened, and Sergeant Fones 
entered. All started to their feet, most with 
curses on their lips; but Sergeant Fones never 


28 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


seemed to hear anything that could make a fea- 
ture of his face alter. Pierre’s hand was on his 
hip, as if feeling for something. Sergeant Fones 
saw that; but he walked to where Aleck stood, 
with his unplayed cards still in his hand, and, 
laying a hand on his shoulder, said, “Come 
with me.” 

“Why should I go with you?” — this with a 
drunken man’s bravado. 

“You are my prisoner.” 

Pierre stepped forward. “What is his crime?” 
he exclaimed. 

“How does that concern you. Pretty Pierre?” 

“He is my friend.” 

“Is he your friend, Aleck?” 

What was there in the eyes of Sergeant Pones 
that forced the reply — “To-night, yes; to-mor- 
row, no?” 

‘ ‘ Exactly. It is near to-morrow ; come. ’ ’ 

Aleck was led toward the door. Once more 
Pierre’s hand went to his hip; but he was look- 
ing at the prisoner, not at the sergeant. The 
sergeant saw, and his fingers were at his belt. 
He opened the door. Aleck passed out. He 
followed. Two horses were tied to a post. With 
difficulty Aleck was mounted. Once on the way 
his brain began slowly to clear, but he grew pain- 
fully cold. It was a bitter night. How bitter 
it might have been for the ne’er-do-weel let the 
words of Idaho Jack, spoken in a long hour’s 
talk next day with Old Brown Windsor, show. 
“Pretty Pierre, after the two were gone, said, 
with a shiver of curses — ‘Another hour and it 


THE PATHOL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 20 


woold have been done, and no one to blame. He 
was ready for trouble. His money was nearly 
finished. A little quarrel easily made, the door 
would open, and he would pass out. His horse 
would be gone, he could not come back; he 
would walk. The air is cold, quite, quite cold ; 
and the snow is a soft bed. He would sleep well 
and sound, having seen Pretty Pierre for the 
last time. And now I ’ The rest was French 
and furtive.” 

From that hour Idaho Jack and Pretty Pierre 
parted company. 

Riding from Pardon^s Drive, Young Aleck 
noticed at last that they were not going toward 
the barracks. 

He said : “ Why do you arrest me ? ’ ^ 

The sergeant replied: “You will know that 
soon enough. You are now going to your own 
home. To-morrow you will keep your word and 
go to David Humphrey’s place ; the next day I 
will come for you. Which do you choose: tc 
ride with me to-night to the barracks and know 
why you are arrested, or go, unknowing, as I 
bid you, and keep your word with the girl?” 

Through Aleck’s, fevered brain there ran the 
words of the song he sang before : 

“Out from your vineland come 
. Into the prairies wild ; 

Here will we make our home — 

Father, mother, and child.” 

He could have but one answer. 

At the door of his home the sergeant left him 
with the words : “Remember you are on parole. ’ ’ 


30 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Aleck noticed, as the sergeant rode away, that 
the face of the sky had changed and slight gusts 
of wind had come up. At any other time his 
mind would have dwelt upon the fact. It did 
not do so now. 

Christmas Day came. People said that the 
fiercest night, since the blizzard day of 1863, had 
been passed. But the morning was clear and 
beautiful. The sun came up like a great flower 
expanding. First the yellow, then the purple, 
then the red, and then a mighty shield of roses. 
The world was a blanket of drift, and down, and 
glistening silver. 

Mab Humphrey greeted her lover with such a 
smile as only springs to a thankful woman’s lips. 
He had given his word and had kept it; and the 
path of the future seemed surer. 

He was a prisoner on parole; still that did not 
depress him. Plans for coming days were talked 
of, and the laughter of many voices filled the 
house. The ne’er-do-weel was clolfied and in his 
right mind. In the Hunter’s Room the noblest 
trophy was the heart of a repentant prodigal. 

In the barracks that morning a gazetted notice 
was posted, announcing, with , 3 uch technical 
language as is the custom, that Sergeant Pones 
was promoted to be a lieutenant in the Mounted 
Police Force of the Horth- West Territory. When 
the officer in command sent for him he could not 
be found. But he was found that morning ; and 
when Private Gellatly, with a warm hand, touch- 
ing the glove of “iron and ice” — that, indeed, 
now, said: “Sergeant Fones, you are promoted. 


THE PATROL OF THE CYPRESS HILLS. 31 


God help 3’ou!” he gave no sign. Motionless, 
stern, erect, he sat there upon his horse, beside a 
stunted larch-tree. The broncho seemed to un- 
derstand, for he did not stir, and had not done 
so for hours ; — they could tell that. The bridle 
rein was still in the frigid fingers, and a smile 
was upon the face. 

A smile upon the face of Sergeant Fones. 

Perhaps he smiled that he was going to the 
Barracks of the Free. 

“-Free among the Dead like unto them that 
are ivounded and lie in the grave, that are 
out of remembrance.'*^ 

In the wild night he had lost his way, though 
but. a few miles from the barracks. 

He had done his duty rigidly in that sphere of 
life where he had lived so much alone among 
his many comrades. Had he exceeded his duty 
once in arresting Young Aleck? 

When, the next day. Sergeant Fones lay in 
the barracks, over him the flag for which he had 
sworn to do honest service, and his promotion 
papers in his guiet hand, the two who loved each 
other stood beside him for many a throbbing 
minute. And one said to herself, silently: “I 
felt sometimes” — but no more words did she say 
even to herself. 

Old Aleck came in, and walked to where the 
sergeant slept, wrapped close in that white 
frosted coverlet which man wears but once. He 
stood for a moment silent, his fingers numbly 
clasped. 

Private Gellatly spoke softly: “Angels betide 


32 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


me, it’s little we knew the great of him till he 
wint away ; the pride, and the law — and the love 
of him.” 

In the tragedy that faced them this Christmas 
morning one at least had seen “the love of him.” 
Perhaps the broncho had known it before. 

Old Aleck laid a palm upon the hand he had 
never touched when it had life. “He’s — too — 
ha’sh,” he said, slowly. 

Private Gellatly looked up wonderingly. 

But the old man’s eyes were wet. 


God’s Garrison. 


Twenty years ago there was trouble at Fort 
o’ God. “Out of this place we get betwixt the 
suns,” said Gyng the Factor. “No help that 
falls abaft to-morrow could save us. Food 
dwindles, and ammunition’s nearly gone, and 
they’ll have the cold steel in our scalp-locks if 
we stay. We’ll creep along the Devil’s Cause- 
way, then through the Ked Horn Woods, and 
so across the plains to Rupert House. Whip in 
the dogs, Baptiste, and be ready all of you at 
midnight.” 

“And Grab the Idiot — what of him?” said 
Pretty Pierre. 

“He’ll have to take his chance. If he can 
travel with us, so much the better for him;” and 
the Factor shrugged his shoulders. 

“If not, so much the worse, eh?” replied 
Pretty Pierre. 

“Work the sum out to suit yourself. We’ve 
got our necks to same. God’ll have to help the 
Idiot if we can’t.” 

“You hear. Grab Hamon, Idiot,” said Pierre 
an hour afterward, “we’re going to leave Fort 
o’ God and make for Rupert House. You’ve a 
dragging leg, you’re gone in the savvey, you 

( 33 ) 


34 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


have to balance yourself with your hands as you 
waddle along, and you slobber when you talk; 
but you’ve got to cut away with us quick across 
the Beaver Plains, and Christ’ll have to help you 
if we can’t. That’s what the Factor says, and 
that’s how the case stands, Idiot — hien 

“Grah want pipe — bubble — bubble — wind 
blow,” muttered the daft one. 

Pretty Pierre bent over and said slowly: “If 
you stay here, Grah, the Indian get your scalp ; 
if yx>u go, the snow is deep and the frost is like 
a badger’s tooth, and you can’t be carried.” 

“Oh, oh! — my mother dead — poor Annie — my 
God ! Grah want pipe — poor Grah sleep in snow 
— ^bubble, bubble — oh, oh ! — the long wind, fly 
away.” 

Pretty Pierre watched the great head of the 
, Idiot as it swung heavily on his shoulders, and 
then said: like that, so!” and turned 

awa^^. 

When the party were about to sally forth on 
their perilous path to safety, Gyng stood and 
cried angrily: “Well, why hasn’t some one 
bundled up that moth-eaten Caliban? Curse it 
all, must I do everything myself?” 

“But you see,” said Pierre, “the Caliban stays 
at Fort o’ God.” 

“You’ve got a Christian heart in you, so help 
me, Heaven!” rpplied the other. “No, sir, we 
give him a chance — and his Maker too for that 
matter, to show what He’s willing to do for His 
misfits.” 

• Pretty Pierre rejoined : “ W ell, I have thought. 


god’s garrison. 


35 


The game is all against Grah if he go ; but there 
are two who stay at Fort o’ God.” 

And that is how, when the Factor and his 
half-breeds and trappers stole away in silence 
toward the .Devil’s Causeway, Pierre and the 
Idiot remained behind. And that is why the 
flag of the H. B. C. still flew above Fort o’ God 
in the New Year’s sun just twenty years ago 
to-day. 

The Hudson’s Bay Company had never done 
a worse day’s work than when they promoted 
Gyng to be chief factor. He loathed the heathen, 
and he showed his loathing. He had a heart 
harder than iron, a speech that bruised worse 
than the hoof of an angry moose. And when at 
last he drove away a band of wandering Sioux, 
foodless, from the stores, siege and ambush took 
the place of prayer, and a nasty portion fell to 
Fort o’ God. For the Indians found a great 
cache of buffalo meat, and, having sent the wo- 
men and children south with the old men, gave 
constant and biting assurances to Gyng that the 
heathen hath his hour, even though he be a dog 
which is refused those scraps from the white 
man’s table that make for life in the hour of 
need. Besides all else, there was in the Fort the 
thing which the gods made last to humble the 
pride of men — there was rum. 

And the morning after Gyng and his men had 
departed, because it was a day when frost was 
master of the sun, and men grew wild for action, 
since to stand still was to face indignant Death, 
they, who camped without, prepared to make a 


36 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


sally upon the wooden gates. Pierre saw their 
intent, and hid in the ground some pemmican 
and all the scanty rum. Then he looked at his 
powder and shot, and saw that there was little 
left. If he spent it on the besiegers, how should 
they fare for beast and fowl in hungry days? 
And for his rifle he had but a brace of bullets. 
He rolled these in his hand, looking upon them 
with a grim smile. And the Idiot, seeing, rose 
and sidled toward him, and said: “Poor Grrah 
want pipe — bubble — bubble.” Then a light of. 
childish cunning came into his eyes, and he 
touched the bullets blunderingly, and contin- 
ued: “Plenty, plenty b’longs Grab — give poor 
Grah pipe — plenty, plenty, give you these.” 

And Pretty Pierre after a moment replied: 
“So that’s it, Grah? — ^you’ve got bullets stowed 
away? Well, I must have them. It’s a one- 
sided game in which you get the tricks; but 
here’s the pipe. Idiot — ^my only pipe for your 
dribbling mouth — my last good comrade., How 
show me the bullets. Take me to them, daft one, 
quick.” 

A little later the Idiot sat inside the store 
wrapped in loose furs, and blowing bubbles; 
while Pretty Pierre, with many handfuls of bul- 
lets by him, waited for the attack. 

“Eh,” he said, as he watched from a loophole, 
“Gyng and the others have got safely past the 
Causeway, and the rest is possible. Well, it 
hurts an idiot as much to die, perhaps, as a half- 
breed or a factor. It is good to stay here. If 
we fight, and go out swift like Grab’s bubbles. 


god’s garrison. 


37 


it is the game. If we starve and sleep as did 
Grab’s mother, then it also is the game. It is 
great to have all the chances against and then 
to win. We shall see.” 

With a sharp relish in his eye he watched the 
enemy coming slowly forward. Yet he talked 
almost idly to himself: “I have a thought of so 
long ago. A woman — she was a mother, and 
it was on the Madawaska River, and she said : 
‘Sometimes I think a devil was your father; an 
angel sometimes. You were begot in an hour 
between a fighting and a mass: between blood 
and heaven. And when you were born you made 
no cry. They said that was a sign of evil. You 
refused the breast, and drank only of the milk of 
wild cattle. In baptism you flung your hand 
before your face that the v/ater might not touch, 
nor the priest’s finger make a cross upon the 
water. And they said it were better if you had 
been born an idiot than with an evil spirit ; and 
that your hand would be against the loins that 
bore you. But, Pierre, ah, Pierre, you love your 
‘mother, do you not?’ ” .... And he standing 
now, his eye closed with the gate-chink in front 
of Port o’ God, said quietly: ‘She was of the 
race that hated these — my mother; and she died 
of a wound they gave her at the Tete Blanche 
Hill. Well, for that you die now. Yellow Arm, 
if this gun has a bullet cold enough.” 

A bullet pinged through the sharp air, as the 
Indians swarmed toward the gate, and Yellow 
Arm, the chief, fell. The besiegers paused ; and 
then, as if at the command of the fallen man. 


38 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


they drew back, bearing him to the camp, where 
they sat down and mourned. 

Pierre watched them for a time; and, seeing 
that they made no further move, retired into the 
store, where the Idiot muttered and was happy 
after his kind. “Grah got pipe — blow away — 
blow away to Annie — pretty soon.’’ 

“Yes, Grab, there’s chance enough that you’ll 
blow away to Annie pretty soon,” remarked the 
other. 

“Grab have white eagles — fly, fly on the 
wind — Oh, oh, bubble, bubble!” and he sent 
the filmy globes floating from the pipe that a 
camp of river- drivers had given the half-breed 
V/ inters before. 

Pierre stood and looked at the wandering eyes, 
behind which were the torturings of an immense 
and confused intelligence: a life that fell de- 
formed before the weight of too much brain, so 
that all tottered from the womb into the gutters 
of foolishness, and the tongue mumbled of chaos 
when it should have told marvelous things. And 
the half-breed, the thought of this coming upon 
him, said: “Well, I think the matters of hell 
have fallen across the things of heaven, and there 
is storm. If for one moment he could think 
clear, it would be great!” 

He bethought him of a certain chant, taught 
him by a medicine man in childhood, which, 
sung to the waving of a torch in a place of dark- 
ness, caused evil spirits to pass from those pos- 
sessed, and good spirits to reign in their stead. 
And he raised the Idiot to his feet, and brought 


god’s garrison. 


39 


him, maundering, to a room where no light was. 
He kneeled before him with a lighted torch of 
bear’s fat and the tendons of the deer, and wav- 
ing it gently to and fro, sang the ancient rune, 
until the eye of the Idiot, following the torch at 
a tangent as it waved, suddenly became fixed 
upon the fiame, when it ceased to move. And 
the words of the chant ran through Grab’s ears, 
and pierced to the remote parts of his being ; and 
a sickening trouble came upon his face, and the 
lips ceased to drip, and were caught up in 
twinges of pain. . . . The chant rolled on: 
“Go forth, go forth upon them, thou, the 
Scarlet Hiinter! Drive them forth into the 
unlds, drive them crying forth! Enter in, 0 
enter in, and lie upon the couch of peace, the 
couch of peace tvithin my ungtvam, thou the 
wise one! Behold, I call to thee!” 

And Pierre, looking upon the Idiot, saw his 
face glow, and his eye stream steadily to the 
light, and he said: “What is it that you see. 
Grab? — speak!” 

All pitifulness and struggle had* gone from the 
Idiot’s face, and a strong calm fell upon it, and 
the voice of a man that God had created spoke 
slowly: “There is an end of blood. The great 
chief Yellow Arm is fallen. He goeth to the 
plains where his wife will mourn upon his knees, 
and his children cry, because he that gathered 
food is gone, and the pots are empty on the fire. 
And they who follow him shall fight no more. 
Two shall live through bitter days, and when the 
leaves shall shine in the sun again, there shall 


40 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


good things befall. But one shall go upon a 
long journey with the singing birds in the path 
of the white eagle. He shall travel, and not 
cease until he reach the place where fools, and 
children, and they into whom a devil entered 
through the gates of birth, find the mothers who 
bore them. But the other goeth at a different 
time — ” At this point the light in Pretty Pierre’s 
hand flickered and went out, and through the 
darkness there came a voice, the voice of an 
idiot, that whimpered: “Grah want pipe — An- 
nie, Annie dead.” 

The angel of wisdom was gone, and chaos 
spluttered on the lolling lips again ; the Idiot sat 
feeling for the pipe that he had dropped. 

And never again through the days that came 
and went could Pierre, by any conjuring, or any 
swaying/^orch, make the fool into a man again. 
The d^ils of confusion were returned forever. 
ButThere had been one glimpse of the god. And 
it was as the Idiot had said when he saw with 
the eyes of that god : no more blood was shed. 
The garrison of this fort held it unmolested. The 
besiegers knew not that two men only stayed 
within the walls; and because the chief begged 
to be taken southTo die, they left the place sur- 
rounded by its moats of ice and its trenches of 
famine ; and they came not back. 

But . other foes more deadly than the angry 
heathen came, and they were called Hunger and 
Loneliness. The one destroyed the body and the 
other the brain. But Grab was not lonely, nor 
did he hunger. He blew his bubbles, and mut- 


GOD’S GARRISON. 


41 


tered of a wind whereon a useless thing— a film 
of water, a butterfly, or a fool — might ride be- 
yond the reach of spirit,, or man or heathen. His 
flesh remained the same, and grew not less ; but 
that of Pierre wasted, and his eye grew darker 
with suffering. For man is only man, and 
hunger is, a cruel thing. To give one’s food to 
feed a fool, and to search the silent plains in vain 
for any living thing to kill, is a matter for 
angels to do and bear, and not mere mortals. 
But this man had a strength of his own like to 
his code of living, which was his own and not 
another’s. And at last, when spring leaped gayly 
forth from the gray cloak of winter, and men of 
the H. B. C. came to relieve Fort o’ God, and 
entered at its gates, a gaunt man, leaning on 
his rifle, greeted them standing like a warrior, 
though his body was like that of one who had 
lain in the grave. He answered to the name of 
Pierre without pride, but like a man and not as 
a sick woman. And huddled on the floor beside 
him was an idiot fondling a pipe, with a shred 
of pemmican at his lips. 

As if in irony of man’s sacrifice, the All Hail 
and the Master of Things permitted the fool to 
fulfill his own prophecy, and die of a sudden 
sickness in the coming-on of summer. But he 
of God’s Garrison that remained repented not of 
his deed. Such men have no repentance, neither 
of good nor evil. 


A Hazard of the North. 


Nobody except Gregory Thorne and myself 
knows the history of the Man and Woman, who 
lived on the Height of Land, just where Dog 
Ear River falls into Marigold Lake. This por- 
tion of the Height of Land is a lonely country. 
The sun marches over it distantly, and the man 
of the East — the braggart — calls it outcast; but 
animals love it; and the shades of the long-gone 
trapper and voyageur saunter without mourning 
through its fastnesses. When you are in doubt, 
trust Gk)d’s dumb creatures — and the happy dead 
who whisper pleasant promptings to us, and 
whose knowledge is mighty. Besides, the Man 
and Woman lived there, and Gregory Thorne 
says that they could recover a Lost Paradise. 
But Gregory Thorne is an insolent youth. The 
names of jbhese people were John and Audrey 
Malbrouck ; the Man was known to the makers 
of backwoods history as Captain John. Gregory 
says about that — but no, not yet ! — let his first 
meeting with the Man and the Woman be de- 
scribed in his own words, unusual and flippant 
as they sometimes are ; for though he is a grad- 
uate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a 
brother of a Right Honorable, he has conceived 
( 42 ) 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


43 


it his duty to emancipate himself in point of 
style in language ; and he has succeeded. 

“It was autumn, he said, “all colors; beauti- 
ful and nippy on the Height of Land ; wild ducks, 
the which no man could number, and bear’s meat 
abroad in the world. I was alone. I had hunted 
all day, leaving my mark now and then as I 
journeyed, with a cache of slaughter here, and 
a blazed hickory there. I was hungry as a circus 
tiger — did you ever eat slippery-elm bark? — ^yes, 

I was as bad as that. I guessed from what I had 
been told, that the Malbrouck show must be 
hereaway somewhere. I smelled the lake miles 
off — oh, you could too if you were half the ani- 
mal I am ; I followed my nose and the slippery- ’ 
elm between my teeth, and came at a double- 
quick suddenly on the fair domain. There the 
two sat in front of the house like turtle-doves, 
and as silent as a middy after his first kiss. 
Much as I ached to get my tooth into something 
filling, I wished that I had ’em under my pencil, 
with that royal sun making a rainbow of the 
lake, the woods all scarlet and gold, and that 
mist of purple— eh, you’ve seen it? — and they 
sitting there monarchs of it all, like that duffer 
of a king who had operas played for his solitary 
benefit. But I hadn’t a pencil and I had a 
hunger, and I said ^ How /’ like any other In jin 
— ^insolent, wasn’t it? — and the Man rose, and 
he said I was welcome, and she smiled an ap- 
proving but not very immediate smile, and she 
kept her seat — she kept her seat, my boy— and 
that was the first thing that set me thinking. 


44 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


She didn’t seem to be conscious that there was 
before her one of the latest representatives from 
Belgravia, not she ! But when I took an honest 
look at her face, I understood. I’m glad that I 
had my hat in my hand, polite as any French- 
man on the threshold of a blanchisserie j for I 
learned very soon that the Woman had been in 
Belgravia too, and knew far more than I did 
about what was what. When she did rise to 
array the supper table, it struck me that if Jo- 
sephine Beauharnais had been like her, she 
might have kept her hold on ISTapoleon, and saved 
his fortunes; made Europe France; and France 
the world. I could not understand it. Jimmy 
Haldane had said to me when I was asking for 
Malbrouck’s place on the compass — ‘Don’t put 
on any side with them, my Greg, or you’ll take 
a day off for penitence. ’ They were both tall 
and good to look at, even if he was a bit rugged, 
with neck all wire and muscle, and had big 
knuckles. But she had hands like those in a 
picture of Velasquez, with a warm whiteness 
and educated — that’s it, educated hands! 

“She wasn’t young, but she seemed so. Her 
eyes looked up and out at you earnestly, yet not 
inquisitively, and more occupied with something 
in her mind, than with what was before her. In 
short, she was a lady ; not one by virtue of a 
visit to the gods that rule o’er Buckingham Pal- 
ace, but by the claims of good breeding and long 
descent. She puzzled me, eluded me — she re- 
minded me of some one; but who? Some one I 
liked, because I felt a thrill of admiration when- 


A HAZARD OP THE NORTH. 


45 


ever I looked at her — but it was no use, I couldn’t 
remember. I soon found myself talking to her 
according to St. James — the palace, you know — 
and at once I entered a bet with my beloved 
aunt, the dowager — who never refuses to take 
my offer, though she seldom wins, and she’s ten 
thousand miles away, and has to take my word 
for it — that I should find out the history of this 
Man and Woman before another Christmas 
morning, which wasn’t more than two months 
off. You know whether or not I won it, my 
son.” 

I had frequently hinted to Gregory that I was 
old enough to be his father, and that in calling 
me his son, his language was misplaced ; and I 
repeated it at that moment. He nodded good- 
humoredly, and continued : 

“I was born insolent, my s— my ancestor. 
Well, after I had cleared a space at the isupper 
table, and had, with permission, lighted my 
pipe, I began to talk. ... Oh yes, I did give 
them a chance occasionally ; don’t interrupt. . . 
I gossiped about England, France, the universe. 
From the brief comments they made I saw they 
knew all about it, and understood my social ar- 
got, all but a few words— is there anything 
peculiar about any of my words? After having 
exhausted Europe and Asia I discussed America ; 
talked about Quebec, the folklore of the French 
Canadians, the voyageurs from old Maison- 
neuve down. All the history I knew I rallied, 
and was suddenly bowled out. For Malbrouck 
followed my trail from the time I began to talk, 


46 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and in ten minutes he had proved me to be a 
baby in knowledge, an emaciated baby ; he 
eliminated me from the equation. He first 
tripped me on the training of naval cadets ; then 
on the Crimea ; then on the taking of Quebec ; 
then on the Franco-Prussian War; then, with a 
sudden round-up, on India. I had been trusting 
to vague outlines of history ; I felt when he be- 
gan to talk that I was dealing with a man who 
not only knew history, but had lived it. He 
talked in the fewest but directest words, and 
waxed eloquent in a blunt and colossal way ; but 
seeing his wife’s eyes fixed on him intently, he 
suddenly pulled up, and no more did I get from 
him on the subject. He stopped so suddenly 
that in order to help over the awkwardness, 
though I’m not really sure there was any, I be- 
gan to hum a song to myself. Now, upon my 
soul, I didn’t think what I was humming; it 
was some subterranean association of things, I 
suppose— but that doesn’t, matter here. I only 
state it to clear myself of any unnecessary inso- 
lence. These were the words I was maundering 
with this noble voice of mine : 

“ ‘The news I bring, fair Lady, 

Will make your tears run down— 

Put off your rose-red dress so fine 
And doff your satin gown ! 

Monsieur Malbrouck is dead, alas I 
And buried, too, for aj^e ; 

I saw four officers who bore 
His mighty corse away. 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


47 


We saw above tlie laurels,, 

Hib soul fly forth amain. 

And each one fell upon his face 
And then rose up again. 

And so we sang the glories, 

For which great Malbrouck bled ; 
Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine^. 

Grreat Malbrouck, he is dead.’ 

“I felt the silence grow peculiar, uncomforta- 
ble. I looked up. Mrs. Malbrouck was rising 
to her feet with a look in her face that would 
make angels sorry — a startled, sorrowful thing 
that comes from a sleeping pain. What an ass 
I was r Why, the Man’s name was. Malbrouck ; 
her name was Malbrouck (awful insolence!). 
But surely there was something in the story of 
the song itself that had moved her. As I after- 
ward knew, that was it. Malbrouck sat still and 
unmoved, though I thought I saw something 
stern and masterful in his face as he turned to 
me ; but again instantly his eyes were bent on 
his wife with a comforting and affectionate ex- 
pression. She disappeared into the house. I, 
hoping to make it appear that I hadn’t noticed 
anything, dropped my voice a little and went on, 
intending, however, to stop at the end of the 
verse : 

“ ‘Malbrouck haa gone a-fighting, 

Mironton, Mironton, Mirontainel' 

I ended there ; because Malbrouck ’s heavy hand 
was laid on my shoulder, and he said : ‘If you 
please, not that song. ^ 


48 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“I suspect I acted like an idiot. I stammered 
out apologies, went down on my litanies, figur- 
atively speaking, and was all the same confident 
that my excuses were making bad infernally 
worse. But somehow the old chap had taken a 
liking to me. (No, of course you couldn’t under- 
stand that.) Not that he was so old, you know; 
but he had the way of retired royalty about him, 
as if he had lived life up to the hilt, and was all 
pulse and granite. Then he began. to talk in his 
quiet way about hunting and fishing; about 
stalking in the Highlands and tiger-hunting in 
India; and wound up with some wonderful stuff 
about moose- hunting, the sport of Canada. This 
made me itch like sin, just to get m}’^ fingers on 
a trigger, with a full moose-yard in view. I can 
feel it now — the bound in the blood as I caught 
at Malbrouck’s arm and said: ‘By George, I 
must kill moose; that’s sport for Vikings, and 
I was meant to be a Viking— or a gladiator.’ 
Malbrouck at once replied that he would give me 
some moose-hunting in December if I would 
come up to Marigold Lake. I couldn’t exactly 
reply on the instant, because, you see, there 
wasn’t much chance for board and lodging there- 
abouts, unless — but he went on to say that I 
should make his house my ‘public’ — perhaps he 
didnH say it quite in those terms — that he and 
his wife would be glad to have me. With a 
couple of Indians we could go northwest, where 
the moose-yards were, and have some sport both 
exciting and prodigious. Well, I’m a muff, I 
know, but I didn’t refuse that. Besides, I be- 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


49 


gan to see the safe side of the bet I had made 
with my aunt, the dowager, and I was more 
than pleased with what had come to pass so far. 
Lucky for you, too, you yarn-spinner, that the 
thing did develop so, or you wouldo’t be get- 
ting fame and shekels out of the results of my 
story. 

“ Well, I got one thing out of the night’s ex- 
perience; and it was that the Malbroucks were 
no plebs; that they had had their day where 
plates are blue and gold and the spoons are solid 
coin. But what had sent them up here among 
the moose, the Indians, and the cronies — what- 
ever they are? How should I get at it? Inso- 
lence, you say? Yes, that. I should come up 
here in December, and I should mulct my aunt 
in the price of a new breech-loader. But I found 
out nothing the next morning, and I left with 
a paternal benediction from Malbrouck, and a 
smile from his wife that sent my blood tingling 
as it hadn’t tingled since a certain season in 
London, which began with my tuneful lyre 
sounding hopeful numbers, and ended with it 
hanging on the willows. 

“When I thought it all over, as I trudged back 
on yesterday’s track, I concluded that I had told 
them all my history from my j^outh up until 
now, and had got nothing from them in return. 
I had exhausted my family records, bit by bit, 
like a curate in his first parish; and had gone so 
far as to testify that one of my ancestors had 
been banished to Australia for political crimes. 
Distinctly they had me at an advantage ; though, 


50 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


to be sure, I had betra5"ed Mrs. Malbrouck into 
something more than a suspicion of emotion. 

“When I got back to my old camp, I could 
find out nothing from the other fellows; but 
Jacques Pontiac told me that his old mate, Pretty 
Pierre, who in recent days had fallen from grace, 
knew something of these people that no one else 
guessed ; because he had let them a part of his 
house in the parish of St. Genevieve in Quebec, 
years before. Pierre had testified to one fact, 
that a child — a girl — had been born to Mrs. Mal- 
brouck in his house, but all further knowledge 
he had withheld. Pretty Pierre was off in the 
Kocky Mountains practicing his profession 
(chiefly poker), and was not available for in- 
formation. What did I, Gregory Thorne, want 
of the information anyway? That’s the point, 
my son. Judging from after-developments, I 
suppose it was what the foolish call occult sym- 
pathy. Well, where was that girl-child? Jacques 
Pontiac didn’t know^. Nobody knew. And I 
couldn’t get rid of Mrs. Malbrouck’s face; it 
haunted me; the broad brow, deep eyes, and 
high-bred sweetness — all beautifully animal. 
Don’t laugh: I find astonishing likenesses be- 
tween the perfectly human and the perfectly 
animal. Did you ever see how beautiful and 
modest the faces of deer are; how chic and sen- 
sitive is the manner of a hound ; nor the keen 
warm look in the eye of a well-bred mare? Why, 
I’d rather be a good horse of blood and temper 
than half the fellows I know. You are not an ani- 
mal lover as I am ; yes, even when I shoot them or 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


51 


fight them I admire them, just as I’d admire a 
swordsman who, in quarts would give me death 
by the wonderful upper thrust. It’s all a battle ; 
all a game of love and slaughter, my son, and 
both go together. 

‘‘Well, as I say, her face followed me. Watch 
how the thing developed. By the prairie-track 
I went over to Fort Desire, near the Rockies, al- 
most immediately after this, to see about buying 
a ranch with my old chum at Trinity, Polly 
Cliffshawe (Polydore, you know). Whom should 
I meet in a hut on the ranch but Jacques’s 
friend. Pretty Pierre. This was luck; but he 
was not like Jacques Pontiac, he was secretive 
as a Buddhist deity. He had a good many of 
the characteristics that go to a fashionable diplo- 
matist ; clever, wicked, cool, and in speech doing 
the vanishing trick, just when you wanted him. 
But my star of fortune was with me. One day 
Silverbottle, an Indian, being in a murderous 
humor, put a bullet in Pretty Pierre’s leg,'and 
would have added another, only I stopped it sud- 
denly. While in his bed he told me what he 
knew of the Malbroucks. 

“This is the fashion of it: — John and Audrey 
Malbrouck had come to Quebec in the year 1875, 
and sojourned in the parish of St. Genevieve, 
in the house of the mother of Pretty Pierre. Of 
an inquiring turn of mind, the French half-breed 
desired to know concerning the history of these 
English people, who, being poor, were yet gen- 
tle, and spoke French with a grace and accent 
which was to the French Canadian patois as 


52 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Shakespeare’s English is to that of Seven Dials. 
Pierre’s methods of inquisitiveness were not 
strictly dishonest. He did not open letters, he 
did not besiege dispatch-boxes, he did not ask 
impudent questions; he watched and listened. 
In his own way he found out that the man had 
been a soldier in the ranks, and that he had 
served in India. They were most attached to 
the child, whose name was Marguerite. One 
day a visitor, a lady, came to them. She 
seemed to be the cause of much unhappiness to 
Mrs. Malbrouck. And Pierre was alert enough 
to discover that this distinguished-looking person 
desired to take the child away with her. To this 
the young mother would not consent, and the 
visitor departed with some chillingly-polite 
phrases — part English, part French — beyond the 
exact comprehension of Pierre, and leaving the 
father and mother and little Marguerite happy. 
Then, however, these people seemed to become 
suddenly poorer, and Malbrouck began farming 
in a humble, but not entirely successful, way. 
The energy of .the man was prodigious ; but his 
luck was sardonic. Floods destroyed his first 
crops, prices ran low, debt accumulated, fore- 
closure of mortgage occurred, and Malbrouck 
and the wife and child went west. 

“Five years after. Pretty Pierre saw them 
again at Marigold Lake : Malbrouck as agent for 
the Hudson’s Bay Company — still poor, but con- 
tented. It was at this period that the former 
visitor - again appeared, clothed in purple and 
fine linen, and, strange as it may seem, sue- 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


53 


ceeded in carrying off the little child, leaving 
the father and mother broken, but still devoted 
to each other. 

“Pretty Pierre closed his narration with these 
words: ^Bien, that Malbrouck, he is great. I 
have not much love of men, but he — well, if he 
say — “See, Pierre, I go to the home of the white 
bear and the winter that never ends; perhaps 
we come back, perhaps we die; but there will 
be sport for men — ” Voila ! I would go. To 
know one strong man in this world is good. 
Perhaps, some time I will goto him — yes. Pretty 
Pierre, the gambler, will go to him, and say : It 
is good for the wild dog that he live near the 
lion. And the child, she was beautiful ; she had 
a light heart and a sweet way.’ ” 

It was with this slight knowledge that Greg- 
ory Thorne set out on his journey over the great 
Canadian prairie to Marigold Lake, for his De- 
cember moose hunt. 

Gregory has since told me that, as he traveled 
with Jacques Pontiac across the Height of Land 
to his destination, he had uncomfortable feelings; 
presentiments, peculiar reflections of the past, 
and melancholy — a thing far from habitual with 
him. Insolence is all very well, but you cannot 
apply it to indefinite thoughts; it isn’t effective 
with vague presentiments. And when Gregory’s 
insolence was taken away from him, he was very 
like other mortals; virtue had gone out of him; 
hm brown cheek and frank eye had lost some- 
thing of their charm. It was these unusual 
broodings that worried him ; he waked up sud- 


54 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


denly one night calling, “Margaret ! Margaret 
like any childlike lover. And that did not please 
him. He believed in things that, as he said him- 
self, “he could get between his fingers’’; he had 
little sympathy with morbid sentimentalities. 
But there was an English Margaret in his life ; 
and he, like many another childlike man, had 
fallen in love, and with her — very much in love 
indeed ; and a star had crossed his love to a de- 
gree that greatly shocked him and pleased the 
girl’s relatives. She was the grandda,ughtr of 
a certain haughty dame of high degree, who re- 
garded icily this poorest of younger sons, and 
held her darling aloof. Gregory, very like a 
blunt, unreasoning lover, sought to carry the re- 
doubt by wild assault ; and was overwhelmingly 
routed. The young lady, though finding some 
avov/ed pleasure in his company, accompanied 
by brilliant misunderstanding of his advances 
and full- front speeches, had never given him 
enough encouragement to warrant his playing 
young Lochinvar in Park Lane ; and his cup be- 
came full when, at the close of the season, she 
was whisked off to the seclusion of a country- 
seat, whose walls to him were impregnable. His 
defeat "was then, and afterward, complete. He 
pluckily replied to the derision of his relatives 
with multiplied derision, demanded his inheri- 
tance, got his traps together, bought a fur coat, 
and straightway sailed the wintry seas to Can- 
ada. 

His experiences had not soured his temper. He 
believed that every dog has his day, and that 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


55 


Fate was very malicious; that it brought down 
the proud, and rewarded the patient; that it took 
up its abode in marble halls, and was the mocker 
at the feast. All this had reference, of course, 
to the time when he should — rich as any nabob 
— return to London, and be victorious over his 
enemy in Park Lane. It was singular that he 
believed this thing would occur; but he did. He 
had not yet made his fortune, but he had been 
successful in the game of buying and selling 
lands, and luck seemed to dog his path. He 
v/as fearless, and he had a keen eye for all the 
points of every game — every game but love. 

Yet he was born to succeed in that game too. 
For though his theory was, that everything 
should be treated with impertinence before you 
could get a proper view of it, he was markedly 
respectful to people. No one could 'resist him; 
his impudence of ideas was so pleasantly mixed 
with delicately suggested admiration of those to 
whom he talked. It was impossible that John 
Malbrouck and his wife could have received him 
other than they did ; his was the eloquent, con- 
quering spirit. 


11 . 

By the time he reached Lake Marigold he 
had shaken off all those hovering fancies of the 
woods, which, after all, might only have been 
the whisperings of those friendly and far-seeing 


56 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


spirits who liked the lad as he journeyed through 
their lonely pleasure-grounds. John Malbrouck 
greeted him with quiet cordiality, and Mrs. Mal- 
brouck smiled upon him with a different smile 
from that with which she had speeded him a 
month before; there was in it a new light of 
knowledge, and Gregory could not understand it. 
It struck him as singular that the lady should be 
dressed in finer garments than she wore when he 
last saw her ; though certainly her purple became 
her. She wore it as if born to it ; and with an 
air more sedately courteous than he had ever 
seen, save at one house in Park Lane. Had this 
rustle of fine trappings been made for him? No; 
the woman had a mind above such snobbishness, 
he thought. He suffered for a moment the pang 
of a cynical idea; but the eyes of Mrs. Mal- 
brouck were on him and he knew that he was 
as nothing before her. Her eyes — how they 
were fixed upon him! Only two women had 
looked so truthfully at him before ; his dead 
mother and — Margaret. And Margaret ! why, 
how strangely now at this instant came the 
thought that she was like his Margaret ! Wonder 
sprang to his eyes. At that moment a door 
opened and a girl entered the room — a girl lis- 
some, sweet-faced, well-bred of manner, who 
came slowly toward them. 

“M}^ daughter, Mr. Thorne,” the mother 
briefly remarked. There was no surprise in the 
girl’s face, only an even reserve of pleasure, as 
she held out her hand and said: “Mr. Gregory 
Thorne and I are old — enemies.” Gregory 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


57 


Thorne’s nerve forsook him for an instant. He 
knew now the reason of his vague presentiments 
in the woods; he understood why, one night, 
when he had been more childlike than usual in 
his memory of the one woman who could make 
life joyous for him, the voice of a voyageui\ 
not Jacques’s nor that of anyone in camp, sang; 

“My dear love, she waits for me, 

None other my world is adorning ; 

My true love I come to thee, 

My dear, the white star of the morning ; 

Eagles spread out your wings — 

Behold where the red dawn is breaking ! 

Hark, ’tis my darling sings, 

The flowers, the song-birds awaking ! 

See, where she comes to me, 

My love, ah, my dear love !“ 

And here she was. He raised her hand to his 
lips, and said: “Miss Carley — Miss Margaret, 
you have your enemy at an advantage.” 

“Miss Carley in Park Lane, Margaret Mal- 
brouck here in my old home,” she replied. 

There ran swiftly through the young man’s 
brain the brief story that Pretty Pierre had told 
him. This, then, was the child who had been 
carried away, and who, years after, had made 
captive his heart in London town! Well, one 
thing was clear, the girl’s mother here seemed 
inclined to be kinder to him than was the guar- 
dian grandmother— if she ivas the grandmother, 
—because they had their first talk undisturbed, 
it may be encouraged; amiable mothers do such 
deeds at times. 


58 


PIERRE AND RIS PEOPLE. 


“And now pray, Mr. Thorne,” she continued, 
“may I ask how came you here in my father’s 
house after having treated me so cavalierly in 
London? — not even sending a P. P. C. when you 
vanished from your worshipers in Vanity Fair.” 

“As for my being here, it is simply a case of 
blind fate; as for my friends, the only one I 
wanted to be sorry for my going was behind 
earthworks which I could not scale in order to 
leave my card, or — or anything else of more im- 
portance ; and being left as it were to the inclem- 
ency of a winter world, I fled from — ” 

She interrupted him. “What! the conqueror, 
you, flying from your Moscow?” 

He felt rather helpless under her gay raillery ; 
but he said : 

“Well, I didn’t burn my kremlin behind me.” 

“Your kremlin?” 

“My ships, then: they— they are just the 
same,” he earnestly pleaded. Foolish youth, to 
attempt to take such a heart by surprise and 
storm ! 

“That is very interesting,” she said, “but 
hardly wise. To make fortunes and be happy 
in new countries, one should forget the old ones. 
Meditation is the enemy of action.” 

“There’s one meditation could make me con- 
quer the North Pole, if I could but grasp it defi- 
nitely.” 

“Grasp the North Pole? That would be awk- 
ward for your friends and gratifying to your en- 
emies, if one may believe science and hist6ry. 
But, perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


59 


fellow ! for my father tells me you are going over 
the hills and far away to the moose-yards. How 
valiant you are, and how quickly you grasp the 
essentials of fortune-making!” 

“Miss Malbrouck, 1 am in earnest, and I’ve 
always been in earnest in one thing at least. I 
<jame out here to make money, and I’ve made 
some, and shall make more; but just now the 
moose are as brands for the burning, and I have 
a gun sulky for want of exercise.” 

‘ ‘ What an eloquent warrior- temper ! And to 
whom are your deeds of valor to be dedicated? 
Before whom do you intend to lay your trophies 
of the chase?” 

“Before the most provoking but worshipful 
lady that I know.” 

“Who is the sylvan maid? What princess of 
the glade has now the homage of your impres- 
sionable heart, Mr. Thorne?” 

And Gregory Thorne, his native insolence 
standing him in no stead, said very humbly : 

“You are that sylvan maid, that princess — ah, 
is this fair to me, is it fair, I ask you?” 

“You really mean that about the trophies?” 
she replied. “And shall you return like the 
mighty khans, with captive tigers and lions, led 
by stalwart slaves, in your train, or shall they 
be captive moose or grizzlies?” 

“Grizzlies are not possible here,” he said, with 
cheerful seriousness, “but the moose is possible, 
and more, if you would be kinder — Margaret.” 

“Your supper, see, is ready,” she said. “I 


60 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


venture to hope your appetite has not suffered 
because of long absence from your friends.” 

He could only dumbly answer by a protesting 
motion of the hand, and his smile was not re- 
markably buoyant. 

The next morning they started on their moose- 
hunt. Gregory Thorne was cast down when he 
crossed the threshold into the winter morning 
without hand-clasp or god- speed from Margaret 
Malbrouck; but Mrs. Malbrouck was there, and 
Gregory, looking into her eyes, thought how 
good a thing it would be for him, if some such 
face looked benignly out on him every morning, 
before he ventured forth into the deceitful da}^. 
But what was the use of 'wishing? Margaret 
evidently did not care. And though the air was 
clear and the sun shone brightly, he felt there 
was a cheerless wind blowing on him — a v^ind 
that chilled him ; and he hummed to himself bit- 
terly a song of the voyageurs : 

“O, O, the winter wind, the north wind — 

My snow-bird, where art thou gone? 

O, O, the wailing wind, the night wind— ■ 

The cold nest ; I am alone. 

O, O, my snow-bird ! 

“O, O, the waving sky, the white sky — 

My snow-bird, thou fliest far ; 

O, O, the eagle’s cry, the wild cry — 

My lost love, my lonely star. 

O, O, my snow-bird!” 

He was about to start briskly forward to join 
Malbrouck and his Indians, who were already 
on their way, when he heard his name called, 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


61 


and, turning, he saw Margaret in the doorway, 
her fingers held to the tips of her ears, as yet 
unused to the frost. He ran back to where she 
stood, and held out his hand. “I was afraid,” 
he bluntly said, “that you wouldn’t forsake your 
morning sleep to say good-by to me.” 

“It isn’t always the custom, is it,” she replied, 
“for ladies to send the very early hunter away 
with a tally-ho? But since you have the grace 
to be afraid of anything, I can excuse myself to 
myself for fleeing the pleasantest dreams to speed 
you on your warlike path.” 

At this he brightened very much, but she, as 
if repenting she had given him so much pleas- 
ure, added: “I wanted to say good-by to my 
father, you know; and — ” she paused. 

“And?” he added. 

“And to tell him that you have fond relatives 
in the old land who would mourn your early 
taking off ; and, therefore, to beg him, for their 
sakes, to keep you safe from any outrageous 
moose that mightn’t know how the world needed 
you.” 

“But there you are mistaken,” he said; “I 
haven’t any one who would really care, worse 
luck! except the dowager; and she, perhaps, 
would be consoled to know that I had died in 
battle — even with a moose — and was clear of 
the possibility of hanging another lost reputa- 
tion on the family tree, to say nothing of sus- 
pension from any other kind of tree. But, if it 
should be the other way; if I should see your 


62 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


father in the path of an outrageous moose —what 
then?” 

“My father is a hunter born,” she responded; 
“he is a great man,” she proudly added. 

“Of course, of course,” he replied. “Good- 
by. I’ll take him your love. — Good-by!” and 
he turned away. 

“Good-by,” she gayly replied; and yet, one 
looking closely would have seen that this stal- 
wart fellow was pleasant to her eyes, and as she 
closed the door to his hand waving farev/ell to 
her from the pines, she said, reflecting on his 
words : 

“You’ll take him my love, will you? But, 
Master Gregory, you carry a freight of which 
you do not know the measure ; and, perhaps, you 
never shall, though you are very brave and hon- 
est, and not so impudent as you used to be — and 
I’m not so sure that I like you so much better 
for that either, Monsieur Gregory.” 

Then she went and laid her cheek against her 
mother’s, and said: “They’ve gone away for big 
game, mother dear; what shall be our quarry?” 

“My child,” the mother replied, “the story of 
our lives since last you were with me is my only 
quarry. I want to know from your own lips all 
that you have been in that life which once was 
mine also, but far away from me now, even 
though you come from' it, bringing its memories 
without its messages.” 

“Dear, do you think that life there was so 
sweet to me? It meant as little to your daughter 
as to you. She was always a child of the wild 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. G3 

woods. What rustle of pretty gowns is pleas- 
ant as the silken shiver of the maple leaves in 
summer at this door? The happiest time in 
that life was when we got away to Pol wood or 
Marchurst, with the balls and calls all over. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Malbrouck smoothed her daughter’s hand 
gently and smiled approvingly. 

“But that old life of yours, mother; what was 
it? You said that you would tell me some day. 
Tell me now. Grandmother was fond of me — 
poor grandmother! But she would never tell 
me anything. How I longed to be back with 
you ! . . . Sometimes you came to me in my 
sleep, and called to me to come with you ; and 
then again, when I was gay in the sunshine, you 
came, and only smiled but never beckoned; 
though your eyes seemed to me very sad, and I 
wondered if mine would not also become sad 
through looking in them so — are they sad, 
mother?” And she laughed up brightly into 
her mother’s face. 

“No, dear; they are like the stars. You ask 
me for my part in that life. I will tell you soon, 
but not now. Be patient. Do you not tire of 
this lonely life? Are you truly not anxious to 
return to — ” 

“ ‘To the husks that the swine did eat’? No, 
no, no; for, see: I was born for a free, strong 
life; the prairie or the wild wood, or else to live 
in some far castle in Welsh mountains, where I 
should never hear the voice of the social Thou 
must ! — oh, what a inust I never to be quite free 
or natural. To be the slave of the code. I was 


64 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


born — I know not how ! but so longing for the 
sky, and space, and endless woods. I think I 
never saw an animal but I loved it, nor ever 
lounged the mornings out at Holwood but I 
wished it were a hut on the mountain side, and 
you and father with me.” Here she whispered, 
in a kind of awe: “And yet to think that Hol- 
wood is now mine, and that I am mistress there, 
and that I must go back to it — if only you would 
go back with me . . . ah, dear, isn’t it your 
duty to go back with me?” she added hesi- 
tatingly^. 

Audrey Malbrouck drew her daughter hun- 
grily to her bosom, and said: “Yes, dear, I will 
go back, if it chances that you need me; but 
your father and I have lived the best days of our 
lives here, and we are content. But, my Mar- 
garet, there is another to be thought of, too, is 
there not? And in that case is my duty then so 
clear?” 

The girl’s hand closed on her mother’s, and 
she knew her heart had been truly read. 


III. 

The hunters pursued their way, swinging 
grandly along on their snowshoes, as they made 
for the Wild Hawk Woods. It would seem as if 
Malbrouck was testing Gregory’s strength and 
stride, for the march that day was a long and 
hard one. He was equal to the test, and even 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


65 


Big Moccasin, the chief, grunted sound approval. 
But every day brought out new capacities for 
endurance and larger resources; so that Mal- 
brouck, who had known the clash of civilization 
with barbarian battle, and deeds both dour and 
doughty, and who loved a man of might, re- 
garded this youth with increasing favor. By 
simple processes he drew from Gregory his aims 
and ambitions, and found the real courage and 
power behind the front of irony — the language 
of manhood and culture which was crusted by 
free and easy idioms. Now and then they saw 
moose-tracks, but they were some days out be- 
fore they came to a moose-yard — a spot hoof- 
beaten by the moose ; his home, from which he 
strays, and to which he returns at times like a 
repentant prodigal. Now the sport began. The 
dog-trains were put out of view, and Big Moc- 
casin and another Indian went off immediately 
to explore the country round about. A few 
hours, and word was brought that there v/as a 
small herd feeding not far away. Together they 
crept stealthily within range of the cattle. Greg- 
ory Thorne’s blood leaped as he saw the noble 
quarry, with their widespread horns, sniffing the 
air, in which they had detected something un- 
usual. Their leader, a colossal beast, stamped 
with his forefoot, and threv/ his head back with 
a snort. 

“The first shot belongs to you, Mr. Thorne,” 
said Malbrouck. “In the shoulder, you know. 
You have him in good line. I’ll take the 
heifer.” 


66 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Gregory showed all the coolness of an old 
hunter, though his lips twitched slightly with 
excitement. He took a short but steady aim, 
and fired. The beast plunged forward and then 
fell on his knees. The others broke away. Mal- 
brouck fired and killed a heifer, and then all ran 
in pursuit as the moose made for the woods. 

Gregory, in the pride of his first slaughter, 
sprang away toward the wounded leader, which, 
sunk to the earth, was shaking its great horns to 
and fro. When at close range, he raised his 
gun to fire again, but the moose rose suddenly, 
and with a wild bellowing sound rushed at Greg- 
ory, who knew full well that a straight stroke 
from those hoofs would end his moose-hunting 
days. He fired, but to no effect. He could not, 
like a toreador, jump aside, for those mighty 
horns would sweep too wide a space. He dropped 
on his knees swiftly, and as the great antlers 
almost touched him, and he could feel the roar- 
ing breath of the mad creature in his face, he 
slipped a cartridge in, and fired as he swung 
round; but at that instant a dark body bore him 
down. He was aware of grasping those sweep- 
ing horns, conscious of a blow which tore tho 
flesh from his chest; and then his knife — how 
came it in his hand? — the instinct of the true 
hunter. He plunged it once, twice, past a foam- 
ing mouth, into that firm body, and then both 
fell together ; each having fought valiantly after 
his kind. 

Gregory dragged himself from beneath the 
still heaving body, and stretched to his feet; but 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


67 


a blindness came, and the next knowledge he had 
was of brandy being poured slowly between his 
teeth, and of a voice coming through endless 
distances: “A fighter, a born fighter,” it said. 
“The pluck of Lucifer — good boy!” 

Then the voice left those humming spaces of 
infinity, and said : ‘ ‘ Tilt him this way a little, 
Big Moccasin. There, press firmly, so. Now 
the hand steady — together — tighter — now the 
withes — a little higher up — cut them here.” 
There was a slight pause, and then: “There, 
that’s as good as an army surgeon could do it. 
He’ll be as sound as a bell in two weeks. Eh, 
well, how do you feel now? Better? That’s 
right! Like to be on your feet, would you? 
Wait. Here, a sup of this. There you are. . . 
Well?” 

“Well,” said the young man faintly, “he was 
a beauty.” 

Malbrouck looked at him a moment, thought- 
fully, and then said: “Yes, he was a beauty.” 

“I want a dozen more like him, and then I 
shall be able to drop ’em as neat as you do.” 

“H’m! the order is large. I’m afraid we shall 
have to fill it at some other time and he smiled 
a little grimly. 

“What! only one moose to take back to the 
Height of Land, to — ” something in the eye of 
the other stopped him. 

“To? Yes, to?” and now the eye had a sug- 
gestion of humor. 

“To show I’m not a tenderfoot.” 

“Yes, to show you’re not a tenderfoot. I fancy 


68 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


that will be hardly necessary. Oh, you will be 
up, eh? Well!” 

“AVell, I’m a tottering imbecile. What’s the 
matter with my legs? — my prophetic soul! it 
hurts! Oh, I see; that’s where the old war- 
rior’s hoof caught me sidewise. Now, I’ll tell 
you what, I’m going to have another moose to 
take back to Marigold Lake. ’ ’ 

“Oh?” 

“Yes. I’m going to take back a young, live 
moose. ’ ’ 

“A significant ambition. For what? — a sac- 
rifice to the gods you have offended in your 
classic existence?” 

“Both. A peace-offering, and a sacrifice to — 
a goddess. ’ ’ 

“Young man,” said the other, the light of a 
smile playing on his lips, “ ‘Prosperity be thy 
page!’ Big Moccasin, what of this young live 
moose?” 

The Indian shook his head doubtfully. 

“But I tell you I shall have that live moose, 
if I have to stay here to see it grow.” 

And Malbrouck liked his pluck, and wished 
him good luck. And the good luck came. They 
traveled back slowly to the Height of Land, 
making a circuit. For a week they saw no more 
moose; but meanwhile Gregory’s hurt quickly 
healed. They had now left only eight days in 
which to get back to Dog Ear River and Mari- 
gold Lake. If the young moose was to come it 
must come soon. It came soon. 

They chanced upon a moose-yard, and while 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


69 


the Indians were beating the woods, Malbrouck 
and Gregory watched. 

Soon a cow and a young moose came swing- 
ing down to the embankment. Malbrouck whis- 
pered: “Now if you must have your live moose, 
here’s a lasso. I’ll bring down the cow. The 
young one’s horns are not large. Remember, no 
pulling. I’ll do that. Keep your broken chest 
and bad arm safe. Now!” 

Down came the cow with a plunge into the 
yard — dead. The lasso, too, was over the horns 
of the calf, and in an instant Malbrouck was 
swinging away with it over the snow. It was 
making for the trees — exactly what Malbrouck 
desired. He deftly threw the rope round a sap- 
ling, but not too taut, lest the moose’s horns 
should be injured. The plucky animal now 
turned on him. He sprang behind a tree, and 
at that instant he heard the thud of hoofs behind 
him. He turned to see a huge bull-moose bound- 
ing toward him. He was between two fires, and 
quite unarmed. Those hoofs had murder in 
them. But at the instant a rifle shot rang out, 
and he only caught the forward rush of the ant- 
lers as the beast fell. 

The young moose now had ceased its strug- 
gles, and came forward to the dead bull with that 
hollow sound of mourning peculiar to its kind. 
Though it afterward struggled o^ice or twice to 
be free, it became docile and was easily taught, 
when its anger and fear were over. 

And Gregory Thorne had his live moose. He 
had also, by that splendid shot, achieved with 


70 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


one arm, saved Malbrouck from peril, perhaps 
from death. 

They drew up before the house at Marigold 
Lake on the afternoon of the day before Christ- 
mas, a triumphal procession. The moose was 
driven, a peaceful captive with a wreath of cedar 
leaves around its neck — the humorous conception 
of Gregory Thorne. Malbrouck had announced 
their coming by a blast from his horn, and Mar- 
garet was standing in the doorway wrapped in 
furs, which may have come originally from 
Hudson’s Bay, but which had been deftly re- 
manufactured in Regent Street. 

Astonishment, pleasure, beamed in her eyes. 
She clapped her hands gayly, and cried: “Wel- 
come, welcome, merry-men all!” She kissed 
her father ; she called to her mother to come and 
see ; then she said to Gregory, with arch raillery, 
as she held out her hand: “Oh, companion of 
hunters, comest thou like Jacques in Arden from 
dropping the trustful tear upon the prey of others, 
or bringest thou quarry of thine own? Art thou 
a warrior sated with spoil, master of the sports, 
spectator of the fight. Prince, or Pistol? An- 
swer, what art thou?” 

And he, with a touch of his old insolence, 
though with something of sad irony too, for he 
had hoped for a different fashion of greeting, 
said : 

“All, lady, all! The Olympian all! The 
player of many parts. I am Touchstone, Jacques, 
and yet Orlando too.” 

“And yet Orlando too, my daughter,” said 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


71 


Malbrouck gravely; “he saved your father from 
the hoofs of a moose bent on sacrifice. Had your 
father his eye, his nerve, his power to shoot with 
one arm a bull moose at long range, so!— he 
would not refuse to be called a great hunter, but 
wear the title gladly. ’ ’ 

Margaret Malbrouck ’s face became anxious 
instantly. “He saved you from danger — from 
injury, father?” she slowly said, and looked 
earnestly at Gregory; “but why to shoot with 
one arm only?” 

“Because in a fight of his own with a moose 
— a hand-to-hand fight — he had a bad moment 
with the hoofs of the beast. ’ ’ 

And this young man, who had a reputation 
for insolence, blushed, so that the paleness which 
the girl now noticed in his face was banished ; 
and to turn the subject he interposed : 

“Here is the live moose that I said I should 
bring. Now say that he’s a beauty, please. 
Your father and I — ” 

But Malbrouck interrupted : 

“He lassoed it with his one arm, Margaret. 
He was determined to do it himself, because, 
being a superstitious gentleman, as well as a 
hunter, he had some foolish notion that this 
capture would propitiate a goddess whom he 
imagined required offerings of the kind.” 

“It is the privilege of the gods to be merciful,” 
she said. “This peace-offering should propitiate 
the angriest, cruelest goddess in the universe; 
and for one who was neither angry nor really 
cruel — well, she should be satisfied . . . alto- 


72 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


gether satisfied,” she added, as she put her cheek 
against the warm fur of the captive’s neck, and 
let it feel her hand with its lips. 

There was silence for a minute, and then with 
his old gay spirit all returned, and as if to give 
an air not too serious to the situation, Gregory, 
remembering his Euripides said : 

. . . . “let the steer bleed, 

And the rich altars, as they pay their v'ows, 
Breathe incense to the gods : for me, I rise 
To better life, and grateful own the blessing.” 

“A pagan thought for a Christmas Eve,” she 
said to him with her finger feeling for the folds 
of silken flesh in the throat of the moose; “but 
wounded men must be humored. And, mother 
dear, here are our Argonauts returned; and — 
and now I think I will go.” 

With a quick kiss on her father’s cheek — not 
so quick but he caught the tear that ran through 
her happy smile — she vanished into the house. 

That night there was gladness in this home. 
Mirth sprang to the lips of the men like foam on 
a beaker of wine, so that the evening ran toward 
midnight swiftly. All the tale of the hunt was 
given by Malbrouck to joyful ears; for the 
mother lived again her youth in the sunrise of 
this romance which was being sped before hef 
eyes ; and the father, knowing that in this world 
there is nothing so good as courage, nothing so 
base as the shifting eye, looked on the 5"ouug 
man, and was satisfied, and told his story well ; 
— told it as a brave man would tell it, bluntly 
as to deeds done, warmly as to the pleasures of 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


73 


good sport, directly as to all. In the eye of the 
young man there had come the glance of larger 
life, of a new- developed manhood. When he felt 
that dun body crashing on him, and his life clos- 
ing with its strength, and ran the good knife 
home, there flashed through his mind how much 
life meant to the dying, how much it ought to 
mean to the living ; and then this girl, this Mar- 
garet, swam before his eyes — and he had been 
graver since. 

He knew, as truly as if she had told him, that 
she could never mate with any man who was a 
loiterer on God’s highway, who could live life 
without some sincerity in his aims. It all came 
to him again in this room, so austere in its ap- 
pointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit 
of humanity without a note of ennui, or the 
rust of careless deeds. As this thought grew he 
looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces 
of the father and mother, and the memory of his 
boast came back — that he would win the stake 
he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey 
Malbrouck before this coming Christmas morn- 
ing. With a faint smile at his own past insolent 
self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. 

“I have lost my bet,” he unconsciously said 
aloud. 

He was roused by John Malbrouck remark- 
ing: “Yes, you have lost your bet? Well, what 
was it?” 

The youth, the childlike quality in him, flushed 
his face deeply, and then, with a sudden burst of 
frankness, he said: 


74 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“I did not know that I had spoken. As for 
the bet, I deserve to be thrashed for ever having- 
made it; but, duffer as I am, I want you to know 
that I’m something worse than duffer. The 
first time I met you I made a bet that I should 
know your history before Christmas Day. I 
haven’t a word to say for myself. I’m contempt- 
ible. I beg your pardon; for your history is 
none of my business. I was really interested ; 
that’s all; but your lives, I believe it, as if it 
was in the Bible, have been great — yes, that’s 
the word! and I’m a better chap for having 
known you, though, perhaps, I’ve known you 
all along, because, you see, I’ve lo — I’ve been 
friends with your daughter — and — well, really 
I haven’t anything else to say, except that I 
hope you’ll forgive me, and let me know you 
always.” 

Malbrouck regarded him for a moment with a 
grave smile, and then looked toward his wife. 
Both turned their glances quickly upon Marga- 
ret, whose eyes were on the fire ; the look upon 
her face was very gentle ; something new and 
beautiful had come to reign there. 

A moment, and Malbrouck spoke: ‘‘You did 
what was youthful and curious, but not wrong ; 
and you shall not lose your hazard. I — ” 

“aSTo, do not tell me,” Gregory interrupted; 
“only let me be pardoned.” 

“As I said, lad, you shall not lose your haz- 
zard. I will tell you the brief tale of two 
lives.” 

“But, I beg of you!. For the instant I forgot. 


A HAZARD OF THE NORTH. 


75 


I have more to confess.’’ And Gregory told 
them in substance what Pretty Pierre had dis- 
closed to him in the Rocky Mountains. 

■\Yhen he had finished, Malbrouck said : “My 
tale then is briefer still : I was a common soldier, 
English and humble by my mother, French and 
noble through my father — noble, but poor. In 
Burmah, at an outbreak among the natives, I 
rescued my colonel from immediate and horrible 
death, though he died in my arms from the in- 
juries he received. His daughter, too, it was 
my fortune, through God’s Providence, to save 
from great danger. She became my wife. You 
remember that song you sang the day we first 
met you? It brought her father back to mind 
painfully. When we came to England, her peo- 
ple— her mother — would not receive me. For 
myself I did not care ; for my wife, that was an- 
other matter. She loved me and preferred to go 
with me anywhere; to a new country, prefera- 
bly. We came to Canada. 

“We were forgotten in England. Time moves 
so fast, even if the records in red-books stand. 
Our daughter went to her grandmother to be 
brought up and educated in England — though it 
was a sore trial to us both — that she might fill 
nobly that place in life for which she is des- 
tined. With all she learned she did not forget 
us. We were happy save in her absence. We 
are happy now ; not because she is mistress of 
Holwood and Marchurst — for her grandmother 
and another is dead — but because such as she is 
our daughter, and — ” 


76 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


He said no more. Margaret was beside him, 
and her fingers were on his lips. 

Gregory came to his feet suddenly, and with 
a troubled face. 

“Mistress of Hoi wood and Marcliurst!’’ he 
said ; and his mind ran over his own great de- 
ficiencies, and the list of eligible and anxious 
suitors that Park Lane could muster. He had 
never thought of her in the light of a great 
heiress. 

But he looked down at her as she knelt at her 
father’s knee, her eyes upturned to his, and the 
tide of his fear retreated; for he saw in them 
the same look that she had cast on him, when 
she leaned her cheek against the moose’s neck 
that afternoon. 

"When the clock struck twelve upon a moment’s 
pleasant silence, John Malbrouck said to Greg- 
ory Thorne: 

“Yes, you have won your Christmas hazard, 
my boy.” 

But a softer voice than his whispered : 

“Are you — content — Gregory?” 

The Spirits of Christmas-tide, whose paths lie 
north as well as south, smiled as they wrote his ' 
answer on their tablets ; for they knew, as the 
man said, that he would always be content, and 
— which is more in the sight of angels — that the 
woman would be content also* 


A Prairie Vagabond. 

Little Hammer was not a success. He was 
a disappointment to the missionaries; the officials 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company said he was “no 
good ” ; the Mounted Police kept an eye on him; 
the Crees and Blackfeet would have nothing to 
do with him ; and the half-breeds were profane 
regarding him. But Little Hammer was 
oblivious to any depreciation of his merits, 
and would not be suppressed. He loved the 
Hudson’s Bay Company’s Post at Yellow Quill 
with an unwavering love; he ranged the half- 
breed hospitality of Red Deer River, regardless 
of it being thrown at him as he in turn threw it 
at his dog ; he saluted Sergeant Gellatly with a 
familiar Hoiu ! whenever he saw him ; he bor- 
rowed tahac of the half-breed women, and, 
strange to say, paid it back — with other tahac 
got by daily petition, until his prayer was 
granted, at the H. B. C. Post. He knew 
neither shame nor defeat, but where women 
were concerned he kept his word, and was singu- 
larly humble. It was a woman that induced 
him to be baptized. The day after the cere- 
mony he begged ‘ ‘the loan of a dollar for the 
love of God ” from the missionary; and being 

( 77 ) 


78 


PIERRE AND HtS PEOPLE. 


refused, straightwa}^, and for the only time it 
was known of him, delivered a rumbling torrent 
of half-breed profanity, mixed with the unusual 
oaths of the barracks. Then he walked away 
with great humility. There was no swagger 
about Little Hammer. He was simply un- 
quenchable and continuous. He sometimes got 
drunk; but on such occasions he sat down, or 
lay down, in the most convenient place, and, 
like Caesar *beside Pompey’s statue, wrapped his 
mantle about his face and forgot the world. He 
was a vagabond Indian, abandoned yet self-con- 
tained, outcast yet gregarious. Ho social ostra- 
cism unnerved him, no threats of the H. B. C. 
officials moved him; and when in the winter of 
187 — he was driven from one place to another, 
starving and homeless, and came at last emaci- 
ated and nearly dead to the Post at Yellow Quill, 
he asked for food and shelter as if it were his 
right, and not as a mendicant. 

One night, shortly after his reception and 
restoration, he was sitting in the store, silently 
smoking the Company’s tcibac. Sergeant Gel- 
latly entered. Little Hemimer rose, offered his 
hand, and muttered, 

The Sergeant thrust his hand aside, and said 
sharply: “Whin I take y’r hand. Little Ham- 
mer, it’ll be to put a grip an y’r wrists that’ll 
stay there till y’are in quarters out of which y’ll 
come nayther winter nor summer. Put that in 
y’r pipe and smoke it, y’ scamp! ” 

Little Hammer had a bad time at the Post 
that night. Lounging half-breeds reviled him; 


A PRAIRIE VAGABOND. 


?9 


the H. B. C. officials rebuked him; and travel- 
ers who were coming and going shared in the 
derision, as foolish people do where one is brow- 
beaten by many. At last a trapper entered, 
whom seeing. Little Hammer drew his blanket 
up about his head. The trapper sat down very 
near Little Hammer, and began to smoke. He 
laid his plug-tabac and his knife on the counter 
beside him. Little Hammer reached over and 
took the knife, putting it swiftly within his 
blanket. The trapper saw the act, and, turn- 
ing sharply on the Indian, called him a thief. 
Little Hammer chuckled strangely and said 
nothing ; but his eyes peered sharply above 
the blanket. A laugh went round the store. 
In an instant the trapper, with a loud oath, 
caught at the Indian’s throat; but as the 
blanket dropped back he gave a startled cry. 
There was the flash of a knife and he fell back 
dead. Little Hammer stood above him, smil- 
ing, for a moment, and then, turning to Ser- 
geant Gellatly, held out his arms silently for 
the handcuffs. 

The next day two men were lost on the 
prairies. One was Sergeant Gellatly; the 
other was Little Hammer. The horses they 
rode traveled so close that the leg of the In- 
dian crowded the leg of the white man; and the 
wilder the storm grev/, the closer still they rode. 
Apoudre day, with its steely air and fatal frost, 
was an ill thing in the world; but these entang- 
ling blasts, these wild curtains of snow, were 
desolating even unto death. The sun above was 


80 - PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 

smothered ; the earth beneath was trackless ; the 
compass stood for loss all round. 

What could Sergeant Gellatly expect, riding 
with a murderer on his left hand; a heathen 
that had sent a knife through the heart of one 
of the lords of the North? What should the 
gods do but frown, or the elements be at, but 
howling on their path? What should one hope 
for but that vengeance should be taken out of 
the hands of mortals, and be delivered to the 
angry spirits? 

But if the gods were angry at the Indian, 
why should Sergeant Gellatly only sway to 
and fro, and now laugh recklessly, and now 
fall sleepily forward on the neck of his horse; 
while the Indian rode straight, and neither wav- 
ered nor wandered in mind, but at last slipped 
from his hors© and walked beside the other? It 
was at this moment that the soldier heard, “Ser- 
geant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly, ’ ’ called through 
the blast ; and he thought it came from the skies, 
or from some other world. ‘ ‘ Me darlin ’ , ” he said , 
“have y’ come to me?” But the voice called 
again: “Sergeant Gellatly, keep awake! keep 
awake! You sleep, you die; that’s it. Holy. 
Yes. How Then he knew that it v/as Little 
Hammer calling in his ea-r, and shaking him ; 
that the Indian was dragging him from his 
horse . . . his revolver, where was it? he had 
forgotten ... he nodded . . . nodded. But 
Little Hammer said: “Walk, hell! you walk, 
yes;” and Little Hammer struck him again and 
again ; but one arm of the Indian was under his 


A PRAIRIE VAGABOND. 


81 


shoulder and around him, and the voice was anx- 
ious and kind. Slowly it came to him that Little 
Hammer was keeping him alive against the will 
of the spirits — but why should they strike him 
instead of the Indian? Was there any sun in 
the world? Had there ever been? or fire or heat 
anywhere, or anything but wind and snow in 
all God’s universe? . . . Yes, there were bells 
ringing — soft bells of a village church ; and there 
was incense burning — most sweet it was! and 
the coals in the censer — how beautiful ! how com- 
forting! He laughed with joy again, and he 
forgot how cold, how maliciously cold, he had 
been ; he forgot how dreadful that hour was be- 
fore he became warm; when he was pierced by 
myriad needles through the body, and there was 
an incredible aching at his heart. 

And yet something kept thundering on his 
body, and a harsh voice shrieked at him, and 
there were many lights dancing over his shut 
eyes ; and then curtains of darkness were dropped, 
and centuries of oblivion came, and his eyes 
opened to a comforting silence, and some one was 
putting brandy between his teeth, and after a 
time he heard a voice say: you see he 

was a murderer, but he save his captor. Voila, 
such a heathen! But you will, all the same, 
bring him to justice— you call it that. But we 
shall see.” 

Then some one replied, and the words passed 
through an outer web of darkness and an inner 
haze of dreams. “The feet of Little Hammer 
were like wood on the floor when you brought 


82 


PIEERE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


the two in, Pretty Pierre — and lucky for them 
you found them. . . . The thing would read 
right in a book, but it’s not according to the run 
of things up here, not by a damned sight!” 

“Private Bradshaw,” said the first voice 
again, “you do not know Little Hammer, nor 
that story of him. You wait for the trial. I 
have something to say. You think Little Ham- 
mer care for the prison, the rope? — Ah, when a 
man wait five years to kill — so ! and it is done, 
he is glad sometimes when it is all over. Ser- 
geant Gellatly there will wish he went to sleep 
forever in the snow, if Little Hammer come to 
the rope. Yes, I think.” 

And Sergeant Gellatly ’s brain was so numbed 
that he did not grasp the meaning of the words, 
though he said them over and over again. . . . 
Was he dead? Ho, for his body was beating, 
beating . . . well, it didn’t matter . . . noth- 
ing mattered ... he was sinking to forgetful- 
ness . . . sinking. 

So, for hours, for weeks — it might have been 
for years — and then he woke, clear and know- 
ing, to “the unnatural, intolerable day” — it was 
that to him, with Little Hammer in prison. It 
was March when *his memory and vigor van- 
ished ; it was May when he grasped the full re- 
membrance of himself, and of that fight for life 
on the prairie ; of the hands that smote him that 
he should not sleep; of Little Hammer the 
slayer, who had driven death back discomfited, 
and brought his captor safe to where his own 
captivity and punishment awaited him. 


A PRAIRIE VAGABOND. 


83 


When Sergeant Geilatly appeared in court at 
the trial he refused to bear witness against Lit- 
tle Hammer. “D’ye think — does wan av y’ 
think — that I’ll speak a word agin the man — 
haythen or no haythen — that pulled me out of 
me tomb and put me betune the barrack quilts? 
Here’s the stripes aff me arm, and to jail I’ll 
go; but for what wint before I clapt the iron on 
his wrists, good or avil, divil a, word will I say. 
An’ here’s me left hand, and there’s me right 
fut, and an eye of me too, that I’d part with, for 
the cause of him that’s done a trick that your 
honor wouldn’t do — an’ no shame to y’ aither — 
an’ y’d been where Little Hammer was with 
me.” 

His honor did not reply immediately, but he 
looked meditatively at Little Hammer be- 
fore he said quietly — ‘‘Perhaps not, perhaps 
not.” 

And Little Hammer, thinking he was expected 
to speak, drew his blanket up closely about him 
and grunted, 

Pretty Pierre, the notorious half-breed, was 
then called. He kissed the Book, making the 
sign of the Cross swiftly as he did so, and un- 
heeding the ironical, if hesitating, laughter in 
the court. Then he said : I will tell you 

the story: the whole truth. I was in the Stony 
Plains. Little Hammer was ‘ good In jin ’ 
then. . . . Yes, sacre I it is a fool who smiles 
at that. I have kissed the Book. Dam! . . . 
He would be chief soon when old Two Tails die. 
He was proud, then. Little Hammer. He go 


84 


\ PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


not to the Post for drink; he sell not next 
year’s furs for this year’s rations: he shoot 
straight.” 

Here Little Hammer stood up and said: 
“There is too much talk. Let me be. It is all 
done. The sun is set — I care not — I have killed 
him;” and then he drew his blanket about his 
face and sat down. 

But Pierre continued: “Yes, you killed him 
— quick, after five years — that is so; but you 
will not speak to say why. Then, I will speak. 
The Injins say Little Hammer will be great 
man ; he will bring the tribes together ; and all 
the time Little Hammer was strong and silent 
and wise. Then Brigley the trapper — well, he 
was a thief and coward. He come to Little 
Hammer and say: ‘I am hungry and tired.’ 
Little Hammer give him food and sleep. He 
go away. Bien, he come back and say — ‘It is 
far to go; I have no horse.’ So Little Hammer 
give him a horse too. Then he come back once 
again in the night when Little Hammer was 
away, and before morning he go; but when Lit- 
tle Hammer return, there lay his bride — only an 
Injin girl, but his bride — dead! You see? Eh? 
No? Well, the Captain at the Post he says it 
was the same as Lucrece. — I say it was like hell. 
It is not much to kill or to die — that is in the 
game ; but that other, inon Dieu ! Little Ham- 
mer, you see how he hide his head : not because 
he kill the Tarquin, that Brigley, but because he 
is a poor vaurien now, and he once was happy 
and had a wife. . . . What would you do, 


A PRAIRIE YAGABOND. 


85 


judge honorable? . . . Little Hammer, I shake 
your hand— so ! — Hotv P’ 

But Little Hammer made no reply. 

The judge sentenced Little Hammer to one 
month in jail. He might have made it one thou- 
sand months — it would have been the same ; for 
when, on the last morning of that month, they 
opened the door to set him free, he was gone! 
That .is, the Little Hammer whom the high gods 
knew was gone; though an ill-nourished, self- 
strangled body was upright by the wall. The 
vagabond had paid his penalty, but desired no 
more of earth. 

Upon the door was scratched the one word; 

Mow I 


She of the Triple Chevron. 


Between Archangel’s Rise and Pardon’s 
Drive on the Canadian Prairie there was but one 
house. It was a^tavern, and was known as Gal- 
braith’s Place. There was no man in the West- 
ern Territories to whom it was not familiar. 
There was no traveler who crossed the lonely 
waste but was glad of it, and would go twenty 
miles out of his way to rest a night on a corn- 
husk bed that Jen Galbraith’s hands had filled, 
to eat a meal that she had prepared, and to hear 
Peter Galbraith’s tales of early days on the 
plains, when buffalo were like clouds on the ho- 
rizon, when Indians were many and hostile, and 
v/hen men called the Great ISTorth-West a wedge 
of the American desert. 

It is night on the prairie. Jen Galbraith 
stands in the doorway of tho tavern sitting-room 
and ^\’'atches a mighty beacon of flame rising be- 
fore her, a hundred yards away. Every night 
this beacon made a circle of light on the prairie, 
and Galbraith’s Place was in the center of the 
circle. Summer and winter it burned from dusk 
to daylight. No hand fed it but that of Nature. 
It never failed ; it was a cruse that was never 
empty. Upon Jen Galbraith it had a weird in- 

(ec) 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


87 


fluence. It grew to be to her a kind of spiritual 
companion, though, perhaps, she would not so 
have named it. This flaming gas, bubbling up 
from the depths of the earth on the lonely plains, 
was to her a mysterious presence grateful to her ; 
the receiver of her thoughts, the daily necessity 
in her life. It filled her too with a kind of awe ; 
for, when it burned, she seemed not herself 
alone, but another self of her whom she could 
not quite understand. Yet she was no mere 
dreamer. Upon her practical strength of body 
and mind had come that rugged poetical sense, 
which touches all who live the life of mountain 
and prairie. She shelved it in her speech; it 
had a measured cadence. She expressed it in 
her body ; it had a free and rhythmic movement. 
And not Jen alone, but many another dweller 
on the prairie, looked upon it with a supersti- 
tious reverence akin to worship. A blizzard 
could not quench it. A gale of wind only fed 
its strength. A i*ain-storm made a mist about 
it, in which it was enshrined like a god. 

Peter Galbraith could not fully understand his 
daughter’s fascination for this Prairie Star, as 
the Yorth-'Western people called it. It was not 
without its natural influence upcn him ; but he 
regarded it most as a comfortable advertisement, 
and he lamented every day that this never-fail- 
ing gas well was not near a large population, 
and he still its owner. He was one of that large 
family in the earth who would turn the best 
things in their lives into merchandise. As it 
was, it brought much grist to his mill ; for he 


88 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


was not averse to the exercise of the insinuating 
pleasures of euchre and poker in his tavern ; and 
the hospitality which ranchmen, cowboj^s, and 
travelers sought at his hand was often prolonged, 
and remunerative to him. 

Pretty Pierre, who had his patrol as gamester 
defined, made semi-annual visits to Galbraith’s 
Place. It occurred generally after the rounding- 
up and branding seasons, when the cowboys and 
ranchmen were “flush” with money. It was 
generally conceded that Monsieur Pierre would 
have made an early excursion to a place where 
none is ever “ordered up,” if he had not been 
free with the money which he so plentifully 
won. 

Card-playing was to him a science and a pas- 
sion. He loved to win for winning’s sake. After 
that, money, as he himself put it, was only fit to 
be spent for the good of the countrj^, and that 
men should earn more. Since he put his phi- 
losophy into instant and generous practice, act- 
ive and deadly prejudice against him did not 
have lengthened life. 

The Mounted Police, or, as they are more po- 
etically called, the Riders of the Plains, w^atched 
Galbraith’s Place, not from any apprehension of 
violent events, but because Galbraith was sus- 
pected of infringing the prevailing law of Pro- 
hibition, and because for some years it had been 
a tradition and a custom to keep an eye on 
Pierre. 

As Jen Galbraith stood in the doorway looking 
abstractedly at the beacon, her fingers smoothing 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


89 


her snowy apron the while, she was thinking 
thus to herself: “Perhaps father is right. If 
that Prairie Star were only at Vancouver or 
Winnipeg instead of here, our Val could be some- 
thing more than a prairie-rider. He’d have been 
different if father hadn’t started this tavern busi- 
ness. Hot that our Yal is bad. He isn’t; but 
if he had money he could buy a ranch — or some- 
thing.” 

Our Yal, as Jen and her father called him, 
was a lad of twenty-two, one year younger than 
Jen. He was prairie-rider, cattle-dealer, scout, 
cowboy, happy-go-lucky vagrant — a splendid 
Bohemian of the plains. As Jen said, he was 
not bad ; but he had a fiery, wandering spirit, 
touched withal by the sunniest humor. He had 
never known any curb but Jen’s love and care. 
Tliat had kept him within bounds so far. All 
men of the prairie spoke well of him. The great 
new lands have codes and standards of morals 
quite their own. One enthusiastic admirer of 
this youth said, in Jen’s hearing: “He’s a Chris- 
tian — Yal Galbraith!” That was the western 
way of announcing a man as having great civic 
and social virtues. Perhaps the respect for Yal 
Galbraith was deepened by the fact that there 
was no broncho or cayuse that he could not tame 
to the saddle. 

Jen turned her face from the fiame and looked 
away from the oasis of warmth it made, to 
where the light shaded away into darkness, a 
darkness that was unbroken for many a score of 
miles to the north and west. She sighed deeply 


90 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and drew herself up with an aggressive motion 
as if she was freeing herself of something. So 
she was. She was trying to shake off a feeling 
of oppression. Ten minutes ago the gas-lighted 
house behind her had seemed like a prison. She 
felt that she must have air, space, and free- 
dom. 

She would have liked a long ride on the buffalo- 
track. That, she felt, would clear her mind. She 
was no romantic creature out of her sphere, no 
exotic. She was country-born and bred, and 
her blood had been charged by a prairie instinct 
passing through three generations. She was 
part of this life. Her mind was free and strong, 
and her body was free and healthy. While that 
freedom and health was genial, it revolted against 
what was gross or irregular. She loved horses 
and dogs, she liked to take a gun and ride away 
to the Poplar Hills in search of game, she found 
pleasure in visiting the Indian Reservation, and 
talking to Sun-in-the-Horth, the only good In- 
dian chief she knew, or that any one else on the 
prairies knew. She loved all that was strong 
and untamed, all that was panting with wild 
and glowing life. Splendidly developed, softly 
sinewy, warmly bountiful, yet without the least 
physical over-luxuriance or suggestiveness, Jen, 
with her tawny hair and dark-brown eyes, was 
a growth of unrestrained, unconventional, and 
eloquent life. Like Nature around her, glowing 
and fresh, yet glowing and hardy. There was, 
however, just a strain of pensiveness in her, 
partly owing to the fact that there were no 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


91 


women near her, that she had virtually lived 
her life as a woman alone. 


11 . 

As she thus looked into the undefined horizon 
two things were happening : a traveler was ap- 
proaching Galbraith’s Place from a point in that 
horizon ; and in the house behind her some one 
was singing. The traveler sat erect upon his 
horse. He had not the free and lazy seat of the 
ordinary prairie-rider. It was a cavalry seat, 
and a military manner. He belonged to that 
handful of men who patrol a frontier of near a 
thousand miles, and are the security of peace in 
three hundred thousand miles of territory — the 
Riders of the Plains, the Horth-West Mounted 
Police. 

This Rider of the Plains was Sergeant Thomas 
Gellatly, familiarly known as Sergeant Tom. 
Far away as he was he could see that a woman 
was standing in the tavern door. He guessed 
who it was, and his blood quickened at the 
guessing. But reining his horse on the furthest 
edge of the lighted circle, he said, debatingly : 
“I’ve little time enough to get to the Rise, and 
the order was to go through, hand the informa- 
tion to Inspector Jules, and be back within forty- 
eight hours. Is it flesh and blood they think I 
am? Me that’s just come back from a journey 
of a hundred miles, and sent off again like this 


92 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


with but a taste of sleep and little food, and Cor- 
poral Byng sittin’ there at Fort Desire with a 
pipe in his mouth and the fat on his back like a 
porpoise. It’s famished I am with hunger, and 
thirty miles yet to do; and she standin’ there 
with a six months’ welcome in her eye. . . . 
It’s in the interest of Justice if I halt at Gal- 
braith’s Place for half an hour, bedad! The 
blackguard hid away there at Soldier’s Knee will 
be arrested all the sooner ; for horse and man will 
be able the better to travel. I’m glad it’s not 
me that has to take him, whoever he is. It’s lit- 
tle I like leadin’ a fellow-creature toward the 
gallows, or puttin’ a bullet into him if he won’t 
come. . . . Now what will we do, Larry, me 
boy?” — this to the broncho — “Go on without 
bite or sup, me achin’ behind and empty before, 
and you laggin’ in the legs, or stay here for the 
slice of an hour and get some heart into us? Stay 
here is it, me boy? Then lave go me fut with 
your teeth and push on to the Prairie Star there.” 
So saying. Sergeant Tom, whose language in 
soliloquy, or when excited, was more marked by 
a brogue than at other times, rode away toward 
Galbraith’s Place. 

In the tavern at that moment, Pretty Pierre 
was sitting on the bar-counter, where temperance 
drinks were professedly sold, singing to himself. 
His dress was singularly neat, if coarse, and his 
slouch hat was worn with an air of jauntiness 
that accorded well with his slight make and al- 
most girlish delicacy of complexion. He was 
puffing a cigarette, in the breaks of the song. 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


93 


Peter Galbraith, tall, gaunt, and somber-look- 
ing, sat with his chair tilted back against the 
wall, rather nervously pulling at the strips of 
bark of which the yielding chair-seat was made. 
He may or may not have been listening to the 
song which had run through several verses. 
Where it had come from, no one knew; no one 
cared to know. The number of its verses were 
legion. Pierre had a sweet voice, of a peculiarly 
penetrating quality ; still it was low and well- 
modulated, like the color in his cheeks, which 
gave him his name. 

These were the words he was singing as Ser- 
geant Tom rode toward the tavern : 

“The hot blood leaps in his quivering breast — 

Voild! ’Tis his enemies near ! 

There’s a chasm deep on the mountain crest — 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear ! 

They follow him close and they follow him fast, 
And he flies like a mountain deer ; 

Then a mad, wild leap and he’s safe at last !— 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear ! 

A cry and a leap and the danger’s past— 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear 

At the close of the verse, Galbraith said: “I 
don’t like that song. I — I don’t like it. You’re 
not a father, Pierre.” 

“No, I am not a father. I have some virtue 
of that. I have spared the world something, 
Pete Galbraith.” 

“You have the Devil’s luck; your sins never 
get you into trouble.” 

A curious fire flashed in the half-breed’s eyes, 


94 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and he said, quietly: “Yes, I have great luck ; 
but I have my little troubles at times — at times. ” 

“They’re different, though, from this trouble 
of Val’s.” There was something like a fog in 
the old man’s throat. 

“Yes, Val was quite foolish, you see. If he 
had killed a v/hite man — Pretty Pierre, for in- 
stance — well, there would have been a show of 
arrest, but he could escape. It was an In jin. 
The Government cherish the Injin much in these 
(lays. The redskin must be protected. It must 
be shown that at Ottawa there is justice. That 
is droll — quite. Eh, hieii ! Val will not try to 
escape. He waits too long — near twenty-four 
hours. Then, it is as you see. ... You have 
not told her?” He nodded toward the door of 
the sitting-room. 

“Nothing. It’ll come on Jen soon enough if 
he doesn’t get away, and bad enough if he does, 
and can’t come back to us. She’s fond of him 
— as fond of him as a mother. Always was 
wiser than our Val or me, Jen was. More sense 
than a judge and proud — but not too proud, 
Pierre — not too proud. She knows the right 
thing to do, like the Scriptures; and she does it 
too. . . . Where did you say he was hid?” 

“In the Hollow at Soldier’s Knee. He stayed 
too long at Moose Horn. In jins carried the news 
on to Fort Desire. When Val started south for 
the Border other In jins followed, and when a 
halt was made at Soldier’s Knee they pushed 
across country over to Fort Desire. You see, 
Yal’s horse gave out. I rode with him so far. 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


95 


My horse too was broken up. What was to be 
done? Well, I knew a ranchman not far from 
Soldier’s Knee. I told Val to sleep, and I ^"ould 
go on and get the ranchman to send him a horse, 
while I came on to you. Then he could push on 
to the Border. I saw the ranchman, and he 
swore to send a horse to Val to-night. He will 
keep his word. He knows Val. That was at 
noon to-day, and I am here, you see, and you 
know all. The danger? Ah! my friend — the 
Police Barracks at Archangel’s Rise. If word 
is sent down there from Fort Desire before Val 
passes, they will have out a big patrol, and his 
chances — weU, you know them, the Riders of the 
Plains! But Val, I think, will have luck, and 
get into Montana before they can stop him, I 
hope; yes.” 

“If I could do anything, Pierre! Can’t we — ” 

The half-breed interrupted: “ISTo, we can’t do 
anything, Glalbraith. I have done all. The 
ranchman knows me, he will keep his word, by 
the Great Heaven!” It would seem as if Pierre 
had reasons for relying on the ranchman other 
than ordinary prairie courtesy to law-breakers. 

“Pierre, tell me the whole story over, slow and 
plain. It don’t seem nateral to think of it; but 
if you go over it again, perhaps I can get the 
thing more reas’nable in mj^mind. Ko, it ain’t 
nateral to me, Pierre — our Val running away!” 
The old man leaned forward and put his elbows 
on his knees and his face in his hands. 

“Eh, well, it was an In jin. So much. It was 
in self-defense — a little, but of course to prove 


96 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


that! There is the difficulty. You see, they 
were all drinking, and the In jin — he was a chief 
— proposed — he proposed that Val should sell him 
his sister, Jen Galbraith, to be the chief’s squaw. 
He would give him a cayuse. Val’s blood came 
up quick — quite quick. You know Val. He 
said between his teeth: ‘Look out. Snow Devil, 
you Injin dog, or I’ll have your heart. Do you 
think a white girl is like a redskin woman, to 
be sold as you sell your wives and daughters to 
the squaw-men and white loafers, you reptile?’ 
Then the In jin said an ugly word about Val’s 
sister, and Val shot him dead like lightning! . . 
Yes, that is good to swear, Galbraith. You are 
not the only one that curses the law in this world. 
It is not Justice that fills the jails, but Law.” 

The old man rose and walked up and down the 
room in a shuffling kind of way. His best days 
were done, the spring of his life was gone, and 
the step was that of a man who had little more 
of activity and force "with which to turn the 
halting wheels of life. His face was not alto- 
gether good, yet it was not evil. There was a 
sinister droop to the eyelids, a suggestion of 
cruelty about the mouth ; but there was more of 
good- nature and passive strength than either in 
the general expression. One could see that some 
genial influence had dominated what was inher- 
ently cruel and sinister in him. Still the sinister 
predisposition was there. 

“He can’t never come here, Pierre, can he?” 
he said, despairingly. 

“No, he can’t come here, Galbraith. And look : 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


97 


if the Riders of the Plains should stop here to- 
night, or to-morrow, you will be cool — cool, eh?” 

“Yes, I will be quite cool, Pierre.” Then he 
seemed to think of something else and looked up 
half-curiously, half -inquiringly at the half-breed. 

Pierre saw this. He whistled quietly to him- 
self for a little, and then called the old man over 
to where he sat. Leaning slightly forward he 
made his reply to the look that had been bent 
upon him. Retouched Galbraith’s breast lightly 
with his delicate fingers, and said: “I have not 
much love for the world, Pete Galbraith, and 
not much love for men and women altogether ; 
they are fools — nearly all. Some men — you 
know — treat me well. They drink with me — 
much. They would make life a hell for me if I 
was poor — shoot me, perhaps, quick! — if — if I 
didn’t shoot first. They would wipe me with 
their feet. They would spoil Pretty Pierre.” 
This he said with a grim kind of humor and 
scorn, refined in its suppressed force. Fastidious 
as he was in appearance, Pierre was not vain. 
He had been created with a sense of refinement 
that reduced the grossness of his life ; but he did 
not trade on it ; he simply accepted it and lived 
it naturally after his kind. He was not good at 
heart, and he never pretended to be so. He con- 
tinued: “No, I have not much love; but Val, 
well, I think of him some. His tongue is 
straight; he makes no lies. His heart is fire; 
his arms are strong ; he has no fear. He does 
not love Pierre ; but he does not pretend to love 
him. He does not think of me like the rest. So 


98 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, 


much the more when his trouble comes I help 
him. I help him to the death if he needs me. 
To make him my friend — that is good. Eh! 
Perhaps. You see, Galbraith?” 

The old man nodded thoughtfully, and after a 
little pause said : 

“I have killed In jins myself;” and he made 
a motion of his head backward, suggestive of 
the past. 

With a shrug of his shoulders the other re- 
plied: ‘‘Yes, so have I — sometimes. But the 
government was different then, and there were 
no Eiders of the Plains, ’ ’ His white teeth showed 
menacingly under his slight mustache. Then 
there was another pause. Pierre was watching 
the other. 

“What’s that you’re doing, Galbraith?” 

“ Rubbin’ laudanum on my gums for this tooth- 
ache. Have to use it for nuralgy, too.” 

Galbraith put the little vial back in his waist- 
coat pocket, and presently said: “What will you 
have to drink, Pretty Pierre?” That was his 
way of showing gratitude. 

“I am reformed. I will take coffee, if Jen 
Galbraith will make some. Too much broken 
glass inside is not good. Yes.” 

Galbraith went into the sitting-room to ask 
Jen to make the coffee. Pierre still sitting on the 
bar-counter sang to himself a verse of a rough- 
and-ready, satirical prairie ballad: 

“The Riders of the Plains, my boys, are twenty thousand 
strong — 

Oh, Lordy, don’t they make the prairies howl! 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


99 


^Tis their lot to smile on virtue and to collar what is 
wrong, 

And to intercept the happy flowin’ bowl. 

They’ve a notion, that in glory, when we wicked ones 
have chains 

They will all be major-generals — and that I 
They’re a lovely band of pilgrims are the Riders of the 
Plains — 

Will some sinner please to pass around the hat?” 

As he reached the last two lines of the verse 
the door opened and Sergeant Tom entered. 
Pretty Pierre did not stop singing. His eyes 
simply grew a little brighter, his cheek, flushed 
ever so slightly, and there was an increase of 
vigor in the closing notes. 

Sergeant Tom smiled a little grimly, then he 
nodded and said : “Been at it ever since. Pretty 
Pierre? You were singing the same song on the 
same spot when I passed here six months ago.” 

“Eh, Sergeant Tom, it is you? What brings 
you so far from your straw-bed at Fort Desire?” 
and from underneath his hat-brim Pierre scanned 
the face of the trooper closely. 

‘ ‘ Business. Hot to smile on virtue, but to collar 
what is w-rong. " I guess you ought to be ready 
by this time to go into quarters, Pierre. You’ve 
had a long innings.” 

“Hot yet. Sergeant Tom, though I love the 
Irish, and your company would make me happy. 
But I am so innocent, and the world — it cannot 
spare me yet. But I think you come to smile 
on virtue, all the same. Sergeant Tom. She 
is beautiful is Jen Galbraith. Ah, that makes 
your eye bright — so. You Riders of the Plains, 


100 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


you do two things at one time. You make this 
hour some one happy, and that hour some one 
unhappy. In one hand the soft glove of kind- 
ness, in the other, voila ! the cold glove of steel. 
We cannot all be great like that. Sergeant Tom.’’ 

“Not great, but clever. Voila! The Pretty 
Pierre ! In one hand he holds the soft paper, the 
pictures that deceive — kings, queens, and knaves ; 
in the other, pictures in gold and silver — money 
won from the pockets of fools. And so, as you 
say, hien ! and we each have our way, bedad!” 

Sergeant Tom noticed that the half-breed’s 
eyes nearly closed, as if to hide the malevolence 
that was in them. He would not have been sur- 
prised to see a pistol drawn. But he was quite 
fearless, and if it was not his duty to provoke a 
difficulty, his fighting nature would not shrink 
from giving as good as he got. Besides, so far 
as that nature permitted, he hated Pretty Pierre. 
He knew the ruin that this gambler had caused 
‘here and there in the West, and he was glad that 
Fort Desire, at any rate, knew him less than it 
did formerly. 

Just then Peter Galbraith entered with the 
coffee, followed by Jen. When the old man saw 
his visitor he stood still with sudden fear ; but 
catching a warning look from the eye of the half- 
breed, he made an effort to be steady, and said: 
“Well, Jen, if it isn’t Sergeant Tom! And what 
brings you down here. Sergeant Tom? After 
some scalawag that’s broke the law?” 

Sergeant Tom had not noticed the blanched 
anxiety in the father’s face; for his eyes were 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


101 


seeking those of the daughter. He answered the 
question as he advanced toward Jen: “Yes and 
no, Galbraith; I’m only takin’ orders to those 
who will be after some scalawag by daylight in 
the mornin’, or before. The hand of a traveler 
to you, Miss Jen.” 

Her eyes replied to his in one language ; her 
lips spoke another. “And who is the law- 
breaker, Sergeant Tom?” she said, as she took 
his hand. 

Galbraith’s eyes strained toward the soldier 
till the reply came : “And I don’t know that ; not 
wan o’ me. I’d ridden in to Fort Desire from 
another duty, a matter of a hundred miles, whin 
the major says to me, ‘There’s murder been done 
at Moose Horn. Take these orders down to Arch- 
angel’s Rise, and deliver them and be back here 
within forty-eight hours.’ And here I am on 
the way, and, if I wasn’t ready to drop for want 
of a bite and sup, I’d be movin’ away from here 
to the south at this moment. ” 

Galbraith was trembling with excitement. 
Pierre warned him by a look, and almost im- 
mediately afterward gave him a reassuring nod, 
as if an important and favorable idea had oc- 
curred to him. 

Jen, looking at the Sergeant’s handsome face, 
said: 

“It’s six months to a day since you were 
here. Sergeant Tom.” 

“What an almanac you are, -Miss Jen!” 

Pretty Pierre, sipping his coffee, here inter- 


102 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


riipted musingly. “But Miss Jen’s almanac is 
not always so reliable. So I think. When was 
I here last, Miss Jen?” 

With something like menace in her eyes Jen 
replied: “You were here six months ago to-day, 
when you won thirty dollars from our Val; and 
then again, just thirty days after that.” 

“Ah, so! You remember with a difference.” 

A moment after. Sergeant Tom being occupied 
in talking to Jen, Pierre whispered to Peter Gal- 
braith: “His horse — then the laudanum!” 

Galbraith was puzzled for a moment, but soon 
nodded significantly, and the sinister droop to 
his eyes became more marked. He turned to 
the Sergeant and said: “Your horse must be fed 
as well as yourself. Sergeant Tom. I’ll look 
after the beast, and Jen will take care of you. 
There’s some fresh coffee, isn’t there, Jen?” 

Jen nodded an affirmative. Galbraith knew 
that the Sergeant would trust no one to feed his 
horse but himself, and the offer therefore was 
made with design. 

Sergeant Tom replied instantly: “No, I’ll do 
it if some one will show me the grass pile.” 

Pierre slipped quietly from the counter, and 
said: “I know the way, Galbraith. I will 
show.” 

Jen turned to the sitting-room, and Sergeant 
Tom moved to the tavern door, followed by 
Pierre, who, as he passed Galbraith, touched the 
old man’s waistcoat pocket, and said: “Thirty 
drops in the coffee.” 

Then he passed out, singing softly ; 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


103 


“And he sleepeth so well, and he sleepeth so long — 
The fight it was hard, my dear ; 

And his foes were many and swift and strong — 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear !” 

There was danger ahead for Sergeant Thomas 
Gellat]y. Galbraith followed his daughter to 
the sitting-room. She went to the kitchen and 
brought bread, and cold venison, and prairie 
fowl, and stewed dried apples — the stay and lux- 
ury of all rural Canadian homes. The coffee- 
pot was then placed on the table. Then the old 
man said: “Better give him some of that old 
cheese, Jen, hadn’t you? It’s in the cellar. ” He 
wanted to be rid of her for a few moments. 

“S’pose I had,” and Jen vanirhed. 

Now was Galbraith’s chancj. He took the 
vial of landanum from his pocket, and opened 
the coffee-pot. It was half full. This would 
not suit. Some one else — Jen — might drink the 
coffee also! Yet it had to be done. Sergeant 
Tom should not go on. Inspector Jules and his 
Riders of the Plains must not be put upon the 
track of Yal. Twelve hours would make all the 
difference. Pour out a cup of coffee? — Yes, of 
course, that would do. It was poured out quickly, 
and then thirty drops of laudanum were care- 
fully counted into it. Hark! they are coming 
back! — Just in time. Sergeant Tom and Pierre 
enter from outside, and then Jen from the kitchen. 
Galbraith is pouring another cup of coffee as they 
enter, and he says: “Just to be sociable I’m 
goin’ to have a cup of coffee with you, Sergeant 
Tom. How you Riders of the Plains get waited 


104 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


on hand and foot!’’ Did some warning flash 
through Sergeant Tom’s mind or bady, some 
mental shock or some physical chill? For he 
distinctly shivered, though ho was not cold. 
He seemed suddenly oppressed with a sense of 
danger. But his eyes fell on Jen, and the hesi- 
tation, for which he did not then try to account, 
passed. Jen, clear-faced and true, invited him 
to sit and eat, and he, starting half abstractedly, 
responded to her “Draw nigh. Sergeant Tom,” 
and sat down. Commonplace as the words were, 
they thrilled him, for he thought of a table of 
his own in a home of his own, and the same 
words spoken every day, but without the “Ser- 
geant” — simp’ r “Tom.” 

He ate hea/ilyand sipped his coffee slowly, 
talking meanwhile to Jen and Galbraith. Pretty 
Pierre watched them all. Presently the gam- 
bler said: “Let us go and have our game of 
euchre, Pete Galbraith. Miss Jen can well take 
care of Sergeant Tom.” 

Galbraith drank the rest of his coffee, rose, 
and passed with Pierre into the bar-room. Then 
the half-breed said to him: “You were careful 
— thirty drops?” i 

“Yes, thirty drops.” The latent cruelty of 
his nature was awake. 

“That is right. It is sleep; not death. He 
will sleep so sound for half a day, perhaps eigh- 
teen hours, and then! — Val will have a long 
start. ’ ’ 

In the sitting-room Sergeant Tom was saying : 
“Where is your brother, Miss Jen?” He had no 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


105 


idea that the order in his pocket was for the ar- 
rest of that brother. He merely asked the ques- 
tion to start the talk. 

He and Jen had met but five or six times; but 
the impression left on the minds of both was 
pleasant — ineradicable. Yet, as Sergeant Tom 
often asked himself during the past six months, 
why should he think of her? The life he led 
was one of severe endurance, and harshness, and 
austerity. Into it there could not possibly enter 
anything of home. He was but a non-commis- 
sioned officer of the Mounted Police, and beyond 
that he had nothing. Ireland had not been kind 
to him. He had left her inhospitable shores, and 
after years of absence he had but a couple of 
hundred dollars laid up — enough to purchase his 
discharge and something over, but nothing with 
which to start a home. Ranching required capi- 
tal. No, it couldn’t be thought of ; and yet he had 
thought of it, try as he would not to do so. And 
she? There was that about this man who had 
lived life on two continents, in whose blood ran 
the warm and chivalrous Celtic fire, which ap- 
pealed to her. His physical manhood was noble, 
if rugged; his disposition genial and free, if 
schooled, but not entirely, to that reserve which 
his occupation made necessary — a reserve he 
would have been more careful to maintain, in 
speaking of his mission a short time back in the 
bar-room, if Jen had not been there. She called 
out the frankest part of him; she opened the 
doors of his nature; she attracted confidence as 
the sun does the sunflower. 


106 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


-To his question she replied : “I do not know 
where our Val is. He went on a hunting expe- 
dition up north. We never can tell about him, 
when he will turn up or where he will be to- 
morrow. He may walk in any minute. We 
never feel uneasy. He always has such luck, 
and comes out safe and sound wherever he is. 
Father says VaFs a hustler, and that nothing 
can keep in the road with him. But he’s a little 
wild — a little. Still, we don’t hector him. Ser- 
geant Tom ; hectoring never does any good, does 
it?” 

“Ro, hectoring never does any good. And as 
for the wildness, if the heart of him’s right, why 
that’s easy out of him whin he’s older. It’s a 
fine lad I thought him, the time I saw him here. 
It’s his freedom I wish I had — me that has to 
travel all day and part of the night, and thin 
part of the day and all night back again. And 
thin a day of sleep and the same thing over again. 
And that’s the life of me, say in’ nothin’ of the 
frost and the blizzards, and no home to go to, 
and no one to have a meal for me like this whin 
I turn up.” And the sergeant wound up with, 
“ Whooroo! there’s a speech for you, Miss Jen !” 
and laughed good-humoredly. For all that, 
there was in his eyes an appeal that went straight 
to Jen’s heart. 

But, woman-like, she would not open the way 
for him to say anything more definite just yet. 
She turned the subject. And yet again, woman- 
like, she knew it would lead to the same conclu- 
sion : 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON, 


107 


“You must go to-uight?” 

“Yes, I must.” 

“Nothing — nothing would keep you?” 

“Nothing. Duty is duty, much as I’d like to 
stay, and you givin’ me the bid. But my orders 
were strict. You don’t know what discipline 
means, perhaps. It means obeyin’ commands if 
you die for it; and my commands were to take 
a letter to Inspector Jules at Archangel’s Rise 
to-night. It’s a matter of murder or the like, 
and duty must be done, and me that sleepy, not 
forgettin’ your presence, as ever a man was, and 
looked the world in the face. ’ ’ 

He drank the rest of the coffee and mechani- 
cally set the cup down, his eyes closing heavily 
as he did so. He made an effort, however, and 
pulled himself together. His eyes opened, and 
he looked at Jen steadily for a moment. Then 
he leaned over and touched her hand gently with 
his fingers — Pierre’s glove of kindness — and said : 
“It’s in my heart to want to stay; but a sight of 
you I’ll have on my way back. But I must go 
on now, though I’m that drowsy I could lie down 
here and never stir'again.” 

Jen said to herself : “Poor fellow, poor fellow, 
how tired he is! I wish — ” but she withdrew 
her hand. 

He put his hand to his head, and said, ab- 
sently: “It’s my duty and it’s orders, and . . . 
what was I say in’? The disgrace of me if, 
if . . . bedad! the sleep’s on me; I’m awake, 
but I can’t open my eyes. ... If the orders 
of me — and a good meal . . . and the disgrace 


108 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


... to do me duty — looked the world in the 
face — ” 

During this speech he staggered to his feet, Jen 
watching him anxiously the while. No suspicion 
of the cause of his trouble crossed her mind. She 
set it down to extreme natural exhaustion. Pres- 
ently feeling the sofa behind him, he dropped upon 
it, and, falling back, began to breathe heavily. 
But even in this physical stupefaction he made 
an effort to reassert himself, to draw himself back 
from the coming unconsciousness. His eyes 
opened, but they were blind with sleep ; and as 
if in a dream, he said; “My duty . . . dis- 
grace . . . along sleep . . . Jen, dearest Jen” 
—how she started then! — “it must be done . . . 
my Jen!” and he said no more. 

But these few words had opened up a world 
for her — a new-created world on the instant. 
Her life was illuminated. She felt the fullness 
of a great thought suffusing her face. A beauti- 
ful dream was upon her. It had come to her out 
of his sleep. But with its splendid advent there 
came the other thing that always is born with 
woman’s love — an almost pathetic care of the 
being loved. In the deep love of women the 
maternal and protective sense works in the par- 
allels of mutual regard. In her life now it 
sprang f ull-statured in action ; love of him, care 
of him; his honor her honor; his life her life. 
He must not sleep like this if it was his duty to 
go on. Yet how utterly worn he must be! She 
had seen men brought in from fighting prairie 
fires for three days without sleep ; had watched 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


109 


them drop on their beds, and lie like logs for 
thirty-six hours. This sleep of her lover was, 
therefore, not so strange to her ; but it was peril- 
ous to the performance of his duty. 

“Poor Sergeant Tom,” she said. “Poor Tom,” 
she added ; and then, with a great flutter at the 
heart at last, “My Tom!” Yes, she said that; 
but she said it to the beacon, to the Prairie Star, 
burning outside brighter, it seemed to her, than 
it had ever done before. Then she sat down and 
watched him for many minutes, thinking at the 
end of each that bhe would wake him. But the 
minutes passed, his breathing grew heavier, and 
he did not stir. The Prairie Star made quiver- 
ing and luminous curtains of red for the win- 
dows, and Jen’s mind was quivering in vivid 
waves of feeling just the same. It seemed to 
her as if she was looking at life now through 
an atmosphere charged with some rare, refining 
essence, and that in it she stood exultingly. Per- 
haps she did not define it so; but that which we 
define she felt. And happy are they who feel it, 
and, feeling it, do not lose it in this world, and 
have the hope of carrying it into the next ! 

After a time she rose, went over to him and 
touched his shoulder. It seemed strange to her 
to do this thing. She drew back timidly from 
the pleasant shock of a new experience. Then 
she remembered that he ought to be on his way, 
and she shook him gently, then, with all her 
strength, and called to him quietly all the time, 
as if her low toneg ought to wake him, if nothing 
else could. But he lay in a deep and stolid 


no 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


slumber. It was no use. She went to her seat 
and sat down to think. As she did so, her 
father entered the room. 

“Did you call, Jen?’^ he said; and turned to 
the sofa. 

“I was calling to Sergeant Tom. He’s asleep 
there; dead-gone, father. I can’t wake him.” 

“Why should you wake him? He is tired.” 

The sinister lines in Galbraith’s face had 
deepened greatly in the last hour. He went over 
and looked closely at the Sergeant, followed 
languidly by Pierre, who casually touched the 
pulse of the sleeping man, and said as casually: 

“Eh, he sleep well; his pulse is like a baby; 
he was tired, much. He has had no sleep for 
one, two, three nights, perhaps; and a good 
meal, it makes him comfortable, and so you 
see!” 

Then he touched lightly the triple chevron on 
Sergeant Tom’s arm, and said : 

“Eh, a man does much work for that. And 
then, to be moral and the friend of the law all 
the time!” Pierre here shrugged his shoulders. 
“It is easier to be wicked and free, and spend 
when one is rich, and starve when one is poor, 
than to be a sergeant and wear the triple chev- 
ron. But the sleep will do him good just the 
same, Jen Galbraith.” 

“He said that he must- go to Archangel’s Rise 
to-night, and be back at Port Desire to-morrow 
night.” 

“Well, that’s nothing to us, Jen,” replied 
Galbraith, roughly. “He’s got his own busi- 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. Ill 

ness to look after. He and his tribe are none 
too good to us and our tribe. He’d have your old 
father up to-morrow for selling a tired traveler a 
glass of brandy ; and worse than that, ay, a great 
sight worse than that, mind you, Jen.” 

Jen did not notice, or, at least, did not heed, 
the excited emphasis on the last words. She 
thought that perhaps her father had been set 
against the Sergeant by Pierre. 

“There, that’ll do, father,” she said. “It’s 
easy to bark at a dead lion. Sergeant Tom’s 
asleep, and you say things that you wouldn’t 
say if he was awake. He never did us any harm, 
and you know that’s true, father.” 

Galbraith was about to reply with anger; but 
he -changed his mind and walked into the bar- 
room, followed by Pierre. 

In Jen’s mind a scheme had been hurriedly 
and clearly formed; and with her, to form it 
was to put it into execution. She went to Ser- 
geant Tom, opened his coat, felt in the inside 
pocket, and drew forth an official envelope. It 
was addressed to Inspector Jules at Archangel’s 
Rise. She put it back and buttoned up the coat 
again. Then she said, with her hands firmly 
clinching at her side, “I’ll do it.” 

She went into the adjoining room and got a 
quilt, which she threw over him, and a pillow, 
which she put under his head. Then she took 
his cap and the cloak which she had throv/n over 
a chair, as if to carry them away. But another 
thought occurred to her, for she looked toward 
the bar-room and put them dov/n again. She 


112 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


glanced out of the window and saw that her father 
and Pierre had gone to lessen the volume of gas 
which was feeding the flame. This, she knew, 
meant that her father would go to bed when he 
came back to the house, and it suited her pur- 
pose. She waited till they had entered the bar- 
room again, and then she went to them and said, 
“I guess he’s asleep for all night. Best leave 
him where he is. I’m going. Good-night.” 

When she got back to the sitting-room she said 
to herself: “How old father’s looking! he seems 
broken up to-day. He isn’t what he used to be.” 
She turned once more to look at Sergeant Tom, 
then she went to her room. 

A little later Peter Galbraith and Pretty Pierre 
went to tbe sitting-room, and the old man drev/ 
from the Sergeant’s pocket the envelope which 
Jen had seen. Pierre took it from him. “Ho, 
Pete Galbraith. Do not be a fool. Suppose you 
steal that paper. Sergeant Tom will miss it. Ho 
will understand. He will guess about the drug, 
then you will be in trouble. Val will be safe 
now. This Rider of the Plains will sleep long 
enough for that. There, I put the paper back. 
He sleeps like a log. No one can suspect the 
drug, and it is all as we like. No, we will not 
steal; that is wrong — quite wrong” — here Pretty 
Pierre showed his teeth — “we will go to bed. 
Come!” 

Jen heard them ascend the stairs. She waited 
a half hour, then she stole into Yal’s bedroom, 
and when she emerged again she had a bundle 
of clothes across her arm. A few minutes more 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


113 


and she walked into the sitting-room dressed in 
Val’s clothes, and with her hair closely wound 
on the top of her head. 

The house was still. The Prairie Star made 
the room light enough for her purpose. She took 
Sergeant Tom’s cap and cloak and put them on. 
She drew the envelope from his pocket and put 
it in her bosom — she showed the woman there, 
though for the rest of this night she was to be a 
Rider of the Plains — Sergeant Tom — She of the 
Triple Chevron. 

She went toward the door, hesitated, drew 
back, then paused, stooped down quickly, tend- 
erly touched the soldier’s brow with her lips, and 
said: “Pll do it for you. You shall not be dis- 
graced — Tom.” 


III. 

This was at half-past ten o’clock. At two 
o’clock a jaded and blown horse stood before the 
door of the barracks at Archangel’s Rise. Its 
rider, muffled to the chin, was knocking, and at 
the same time pulling his cap down closely over 
his head. “Thank God the night is dusky,” he 
said. We have heard that voice before. The 
hat and cloak are those of Sergeant Tom, but, 
the voice is that of Jen Galbraith. There is 
some danger in this act ; danger for her lover, 
contempt for her self if she is discovered. Pres- 
ently the door opens and a corporal appears. 


114 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Who^s there? Oh,” he added, as he caught 
sight of the familiar uniform ; ‘‘where from?” 

“From Fort Desire. Important orders to In- 
spector Jules. — Require fresh horse to return 
with; must leave mine here. — Have to go back 
at once.” 

“I say,”^aid the corporal, taking the papers — • 
“what’s your name?” 

“Sergeant Gellatly.” 

“Say, Sergeant Gellatly, this isn’t accordin’ to 
Hoyle— come in the night and go in the night 
and not stay long enough to have a swear at the 
Gover’ment. Why, you’re cornin’ in, aren’t 
you? You’re cornin’ across the door-mat for a 
cup of coffee and a warm while the horse is get- 
tin’ ready, aren’t you. Sergeant Gellatly?— Ser- 
geant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellatly! I’ve heard 
of you, but — yes; I ivill hurry. Here, Waugh, 
this to Inspector Jules! If you won’t step in 
and won’t drink and will be unsociable, sergeant, 
why, come on and you shall have a horse as 
good as the one you’ve brought. I’m Corporal 
Gallia.” 

Jen led the exhausted horse to the stables. 
Fortunately there was no lantern used and there- 
fore little chance for the garrulous corporal to 
study the face of his companion, even if he 
wished to do so. The risk was considerable; but 
Jen Galbraith was fired by that spirit of self- 
sacrifice which has held a world rocking to de- 
struction on a balancing point of safety. 

The horse was quickly saddled, Jen mean- 
while remaining silent. While she was mount- 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


115 


ing, Corporal Gaina dre\v and struck a match 
to light his pipe. He held it up for a moment 
as if to see the face of Sergeant Gellatly. Jen 
had just given a good-night, and the horse the 
word and a touch of the spur at the instant. Her 
face, that is, such of it as could be seen above 
the cloak and under the cap, was full in the 
light. Enough was seen, however, to call forth, 
in addition to Corporal Galna’s good-night, the 
exclamation — “Well, I’m bio wed!” 

As Jen vanished into the night a moment 
after, she heard a voice calling — not Corporal 
Galna’s — “Sergeant Gellatly, Sergeant Gellat- 
ly!” She supposed it was Inspector Jules, but 
she would not turn back now. Her work was 
done. 

A half hour later Corporal Gaina confided to 
Private Waugh that Sergeant Gellatly was too 
damned pretty for the force — wondered if they 
called him Beauty at Port Desire — couldn’t call 
him Pretty Gellatly, for there was Pretty Pierre 
who had right of possession to that title — would 
like to ask him what soap he used for his com- 
plexion — ’twasn’t this yellow bar-soap of the 
barracks, that wouldn’t lather, he’d bet his ulti- 
mate dollar. 

Waugh, who had some time seen Sergeant 
Gellatly, entered into a disputation on the point. 
He said that “Sergeant Tom was good-looking, 
a regular Irish thoroughbred; but he wasn’t 
pretty, not much ! — guessed Corporal Gaina had 
nightmare, and finally, as the interest in the 
theme increased in fervor, announced that Ser- 


116 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


geaut Tom could loosen the teeth of, and knock 
the spots off, any man among the Riders from 
Archangel’s Rise to the Cypress Hills. Pretty ! 
not much — thoroughbred all over!” 

And Corporal Galna replied sarcastically — 
“That he might be able for spot dispersion of 
such a kind, but he had two as pretty spots on his 
cheek, and as white as touch-no-tobacco teeth as 
any female ever had.” Private Waugh declared 
then that Corporal Galna would be saying Ser- 
geant Gellatly wasn’t a man at all, and wore 
earrings, and put his hair into papers ; and when 
he could find no further enlargement of sarcasm, 
consigned the Corporal to a fiery place of future 
torment reserved for lunatics. 

At this critical juncture Waugh was ordered 
to proceed to Inspector J ules. A few minutes 
after, he was riding away toward Soldier’s 
Knee, with the Inspector and another private, to 
capture Yal Galbraith, the slayer of Snow Devil, 
while four other troopers also started off in differ- 
ent directions. 


lY. 

It was six o’clock when Jen drew rein in the 
yard at Galbraith’s Place. Through the dank 
humors of the darkest time of the night, she had 
watched the first gray streaks of dawn appear. 
She had caught her breath with fear at the 
thought that, by some accident, she might not 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


iir 


get back before seven o’clock, the hoar when her 
father rose. She trembled also at the supposition 
of Sergeant Tom awaking and finding his papers 
gone. But her fearfulness and excitement was 
not that of vreakness, rather that of a finely ner- 
vous nature, having strong elements of imagina- 
tion, and, therefore, great capacities for suffering 
as for joy; but yet elastic, vigorous, and possess- 
ing unusual powers of endurance. Such natures 
rebuild as fast as they are exhausted. In the 
devitalizing time preceding the dawn she had 
felt a sudden faintness come over her for a mo- 
ment; but her will surmounted it, and, when 
she saw the ruddy streaks of pink and red glorify 
the horizon, she felt a sudden exaltation of phys- 
ical strength. She v/as a child of the light, she 
loved the warm fiame of the sun, the white gleam 
of the moon. 

Holding in her horse to give him a five minutes’ 
rest, she rose in her saddle and looked round. 
She was alone in her circle of vision ; she and 
her horse. The long hillocks of prairie rolled 
away like the sea to the flushed morning, and 
the far-off Cj^press Hills broke the monotonous 
sky-line of the south. Already the air was dis- 
sipated of its choking weight, and the vast soli- 
tude was filling with that sense of freedom 
which night seems to shut in as with four walls, 
and day to gloriously widen. Tears sprang to 
her eyes from a sudden rush of feeling; but her 
lips were smiling. The world was so different 
from what it was yesterday. Something had 
quickened her into a glowing life. 


118 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Then she urged the horse on, and never halted 
till she reached home. She unsaddled the animal 
that had shared with her the hardship of the 
long, hard ride, hobbled it, and entered the house 
quickly. No one was stirring. Sergeant Tom 
was still asleep. This she saw, as she hurriedly 
passed in and laid the cap and cloak where she 
had found them. Then, once again, she touched 
the brow of the sleeper with her lips, and went 
to her room to divest herself of Val’s clothes. 
The thing had been done without any one know- 
dug of her absence. But she was frightened as 
she looked into the mirror. She was haggard, 
and her eyes were bloodshot. Eight hours, or 
nearly, in the saddle, at ten miles an hour, had 
told on her severely, as well it might. Even a 
prairie-born woman, however, understands the 
art and use of grooming better than a man. 
Warm water quickly heated at the gas, with a 
little acetic acid in it — used generally for her 
scouring— and then cold water with oatmeal 
flour, took away in part the dullness and the 
lines in the flesh. But the eyes! Jen remem- 
bered the vial of tincture of myrrh left by a 
young Englishman a year ago, and used by him 
for refreshing his eyes after a drinking bout. 
She got it, tried the tincture, and saw and felt 
an immediate benefit. Then she made a cup of 
strong green tea, and in ten minutes was like 
herself again. 

Now for the horse. She went quickly out 
where she could not be seen from the windows 
of the house, and gave him a rubbing down till 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


119 


he was quite dry. Then she gave him a little 
water and some feed. The horse was really the 
touchstone of discovery. But Jen trusted in her 
star. If the worst came she would tell the tale. 
It must be ’told any way to^ Sergeant Tom — but 
that was different now. Even if the thing be- 
came known it would only be a thing to be teased 
about by her father and others, and she could 
stop’ that. Poor girl! as if that was the worst 
that was to come from her act ! 

Sergeant Tom slept deeply and soundly. He 
had not stirred. His breathing was unnaturally 
heavy, Jen thought, but no suspicion of foul 
play came to her mind yet. Why should it? She 
gave herself up to a sweet and simple sense of 
pride in the deed she had done for him, disturbed 
but slightly by the chances of discovery, and the 
remembrance of the match that showed her face 
a,t Archangel’s Eise. Her hands touched the 
flaxen hair of the soldier, and her eyes grew 
luminous. One night had stirred all her soul 
to its depths. A new woman had been born in 
her. Yal was dear to her — her brother Y al ; but 
she realized now that another had come who 
would occupy a place that neither father, nor 
brother, nor any other, could fill. Yet it was a 
most weird set of tragic circumstances. This 
man before her had been set to do a task which 
might deprive her brother of his life, certainly 
of his freedom; that would disgrace him; her 
father had done a great wrong too, had put in 
danger the life of the man she loved, to save his 
son ; she herself in doing this deed for her lover 


120 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


had placed her brother in jeopardy, had crossed 
swords with her father’s purposes, had done the 
one thing that stood between that father’s son 
and safety; Pretty Pierre, w^hom she hated and 
despised, and thought to be the enemy of her 
brother and of her home, had proved himself a 
friend; and behind it all was the brother’s crime 
committed to avenge an insult to her name. 

But such is life. Men and women are unwit- 
tingly their own executioners, and the execu- 
tioners of those they love. 


V. 

An hour passed, and then Galbraith and Pierre 
appeared. Jen noticed that her father went over 
to Sergeant Tom and rather anxiously felt his 
pulse. Once in the night the old man had' come 
down and done the same thing. Pierre said 
something in an undertone. Did they think he 
was ill? That was Jen’s thought. She watched 
them closely ; but the half-breed knew that she 
was watching, and the two said nothing more to 
each other. But Pierre said, in a careless way : 
“It is good he have that sleep. He was played 
out, quite.” 

Jen replied, a secret triumph at her heart: 
“But what about his orders, the paj^ers he was 
to carry to Archangel’s Rise? What about his 
being back at Fort Desire in the t-ime given 
him?” 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


121 


“It is not much matter about the papers. The 
poor devil that Inspector Jules would arrest — 
well, he will get off, perhaps, but that does no 
one harm. Eh, Galbraith? The law is some- 
times unkind. And as for obeying orders, why, 
the prairie is wide, it is a hard ride, horses go 
wrong; — a little tale of trouble to Inspector 
Jules, another at Fort Desire, and who is to 
know except Pete Galbraith, Jen Galbraith, and 
Pierre? Poor Sergeant Tom. It was good he 
sleep so.” 

Jen felt there was irony behind the smooth 
words of the gambler. He had a habit of saying 
things, as they express it in that country, be- 
tween his teeth. That signifies what is animal- 
like and cruel. Galbraith stood silent during 
Pierre’s remarks, but, when he had finished, said : 

“Yes, it’s all right if he doesn’t sleep too long; 
but there’s the trouble — too long 

Pierre frowned a warning, and then added, 
with unconcern: “I remember when you sleep 
thirty hours, Galbraith — after the prairie fire, 
three years ago, eh!” 

“Well, that’s so; that’s so as you say it. We’U 
let him sleep till noon, or longer — or longer, won’t 
we, Pierre?” 

“Yes, till noon is good, or longer.” 

“But he shall not sleep longer if I can wake 
him,” said Jen. “You do not think of the 
trouble all this sleeping may make for him.” 

“But then — but then, there is the trouble he 
will make for others, if he wakes. Think. A 
poor devil trying to escape the law !” 


122 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


‘‘But we have nothing to do with that, and 
justice is justice, Pierre.” 

“Eh, well, perhaps, perhaps.” 

Galbraith was silent. 

Jen felt that so far as Sergeant Tom’s papers 
were concerned he was safe; but she felt also 
that by noon he ought to be on his way back to 
Fort Desire — after she had told him what she 
had done. She was anxious for his honor. That 
her lover shall appear well before the world, is a 
thing deep in the heart of every woman. It is a 
pride for which she will deny herself, even of the 
presence of that lover. 

“Till noon,” Jen said, “and then he must go.” 


VI. 

Jen watched to see if her father or Pierre 
would notice that the horse was changed, had 
been traveled during the night, or that it was^ a 
different one altogether. As the morning wore 
away she saw that they did not notice the fact. 
This ignorance was perhaps owing largely to the 
appearance of several ranchmen from near the 
American border. They spent their time in the 
bar-room, and when they left it was nearly noon. 
Still Sergeant Tom slept. Jen now went to him 
and tried to wake him. She lifted him to a sit- 
ting position, but his head fell on her shoulder. 
Disheartened, she laid him down again. But 
now at last an undefined suspicion began to take 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


123 


possession of her. It made her uneasy ; it filled 
her with a vague sense of alarm. Vfas this sleep 
natural? She remembered that, when her father 
and others had slept so long after the prairie fire, 
she had waked them once to give them drink 
and a little food, and they did not breathe so 
heavily as he was doing. Yet what could be 
done? What was the matter? There was not 
a doctor nearer than a hundred miles. She 
thought of' bleeding — the old-fashioned remedy 
still used on the prairies — but she decided to 
wait a little. Somehow she felt that she would 
receive no help from her father or Pierre. Had 
they anything to do with this sleep? Was it 
connected with the papers? No, not that, for 
they had not sought to take them, and had not 
made any remark about their being gone. This 
showed their unconcern on that point. She 
could not fathom the mystery, but the suspicion 
of something irregular deepened. Her father 
could have no reason for injuring Sergeant Tom; 
but Pretty Pierre — that was another matter! 
Yet she remembered too that her father had ap- 
peared the more anxious of the two about the 
Sergeant’s sleep. She recalled that he said: 
“Yes, it’s all right, if he doesn’t sleep too 
long.” 

But Pierre could play a part, she knew, and 
could involve others in trouble, and escape him- 
self. He was a man with a reputation for occa- 
sional wickednesses of a naked, decided type. 
She knew that he was possessed of a devil, of a 
very reserved devil, but liable to bold action on 


124 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


occasions. She knew that he valued the chances 
of life or death no more than he valued the thou- 
sand and one other chances of small importance, 
which occur in daily experience. It was his creed 
that one doesn’t go till the game is done and all 
the cards are played. He had a stoic indiffer- 
ence to events. 

He might be capable of poisoning— 
ah, that thought! of poisoning "Sergeant Tom 
for some cause — but her father? The two 
seemed to act alike in the matter. Could her 
father approve of any harm happening to Tom? 
She thought of the meal he had eaten, of the 
coffee he had drunk — the coffee! Was that the 
key? But she said to herself that she was fool- 
ish, that her love had made her so. No, it could 
not be. 

But a fear grew upon her, strive as she would 
against it. She writed silently and watched, 
and twice or thrice made ineffectual efforts to 
rouse him. Her father came in once. He showed 
anxiety ; that was unmistakable, but was it the 
anxiety of guilt of any kind? She said nothing. 
At five o’clock matters abruptly came to a climax. 
Jen was in the kitchen, but, hearing footsteps in 
the sitting-room she opened the door quietly. 
Her father was bending over Sergeant Tom, and 
Pierre was speaking: “No, no, Galbraith, it is 
all right. Y ou are a fool. It could not kill him. ’ ’ 

“Kill hXm.— kill him,” she repeated, gaspingly 
to herself. 

“You see he was exhausted; he may sleep for 
hours yet. Yes, he is safe. I think.” 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


125 


“But Jen, she suspects something, she — ” 

“Hush!” said Pretty Pierre. He saw her 
standing near. She had glided forward and 
f.tood with flashing eyes turned, now upon the 
one, and now upon the other. Finally they 
rested on Galbraith. 

“Tell me what you have done to him; what 
you and Pretty Pierre have done to him. You 
have some secret. I will know.” She leaned 
forward, something of the tigress in the poise of 
her body. “I tell you, I will know.” Her voice 
was low, and vibrated with fierceness and deter- 
mination. Her eyes glowed like two stars, and 
her fine nostrils trembled with disdain and in- 
dignation. As they drew back — the old man 
sullenly, the gambler with a slight gesture of 
impatience — she came a step nearer to . them and 
waited, the cords of her shapely throat swelling 
with excitement. A moment so, and then she 
said in a tone that suggested menace, determi- 
nation : 

“You have poisoned him. Tell me the truth. 
Do you hear, father — the truth, or I will hate 
you. I will make you repent it till you die.” 

“But — ” Pierre began. 

She interrupted him. “Do not speak, Pretty 
Pierre. You are a devil. You will lie. Fa- 
ther — !” She waited. 

“What difference does it make to you, Jen?” 

“What difference — what difference to me? 
That you should be a murderer?” 

“But that is not so, that is a dream of yours, 
Jen Galbraith,” said Pierre. 


126 


PIERBE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Stie turned to her father again. “Father, will 
you tell the truth to me? I warn you it will be 
better for you both.” 

The old man’s brow was sullen, and his lips 
were twitching nervously. “ You care more for 
him than you do for your own flesh and blood, 
Ten. There’s nothing to get mad about like that. 
I’ll tell you when he’s gone. . . . Leffe— let’s 
wake him,” he added, nervously. 

He stooped down and lifted the sieepfng man 
to a sitting posture. Pierre assisted him. 

Jen saw that the half-breed believed Sergeant 
Tom could be wakened, and her fear diminished 
slightly, if her indignation did not. They lifted 
the soldier to liis feet. Pierre pressed the point 
of a pin deep into his arm. Jen started forward, 
woman-like, to check the action, but drew back, 
for she saw heroic measures might be necessary 
to bring him to consciousness. But, neverthe- 
less, her anger broke bounds, and she said: 
“Cowards — cowards! What spite made you do 
this?”' 

“Damnation, Jen,” said the father, “you’ll 
hector me till I make yon sorry. What’s this 
Irish policeman to you? What’s he beside your 
own flesh and blood, I say again.” 

“Why does my own flesh and blood do such 
wicked tricks to an Irish soldier ? Why does it 
give poison to an Irish soldier?” 

“Poison, Jen? You needn’t speak so ghost- 
like. It was only a dose of laudanum ; not 
enough to kill him. Ask Pierre.” 

Inwardly she believed him, and said a Thank 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


127 


God to herself, but to the half-breed she re- 
marked: “Yes, ask Pierre! — you are behind all 
this. It is some evil scheme of yours. Why 
did you do it? Tell the truth for once.” Her 
eyes swam angrily with Pierre’s. 

Pierre was complacent; he admired her wild 
attacks. He smiled, and replied: “My dear, it 
was a whim of mine ; but you need not tell him^ 
all the same, when he wakes. You see this is 
your father’s house, though the whim is mine. 
But look : he is waking — the pin is good. Some 
cold water, quick!” 

The cold water was brought and dashed into 
the face of the soldier. He showed signs of re- 
turning consciousness. The effect of the lauda- 
num had been intensified by the thoroughly ex- 
hausted condition of the body. But the man 
was perfectly healthy, and this helped to resist 
the danger of a fatal result. 

Pierre kept up an intermittent speech. “Yes, 
it was a mere whim of mine. Eh, he will think 
he has been an ass to sleep so long, and on duty, 
and orders to carry to Archangel’s Rise!” Here 
he showed his teeth again, white and regular like 
a dog’s. That was the impression they gave, 
his lips were so red, and the contrast was so 
great. One almost expected to find that the roof 
of his mouth was black, like that of a well-bred 
hound ; but there is no evidence available on the 
point. 

“There, that is good,” he said. “Now set 
him down, Pete Galbraith. Yes—so, so! Ser- 
geant Tom! Ah, you will wake well, soon. 


128 PIEBRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 

Now, the eyes a little wider. Good. Eh, Ser- 
geant Tom, what is the matter ! It is breakfast 
time — quite. ’ ** 

Sergeant Tom’s eyes opened slowly and looked 
dazedly before him for a minute. Then they 
fell on Pierre. At first there was no recognition, 
then they became consciously clearer. He said, 
‘‘Pretty Pierre, you here in the barracks!” He 
put his hand to his head, then rubbed his eyes 
roughly and looked up again. This time he saw 
Jen and her father. His bewilderment increased. 
Then he added: “What is the matter? Have I 
been asleep? What — !” He remembered. He 
staggered to his feet and felt his pockets quickly 
and anxiously for his letter. It was gone. 

“The letter!” he said. “My orders! Wlio 
has robbed me? Faith, I remember. I could 
not keep awake after I drank the coffee. My 
papers are gone, I tell you, Galbraith!” he said 
fiercely. 

Then he turned to Jen; “You are not in this^' 
Jen? Tell me.” 

She was silent for a moment, then was about 
to answer, when he turned to the gambler and 
said: “You are at the bottom of this. Give me 
my papers.” 

Bub Pierre and Galbraith were as dumfounded 
as the Sergeant himself to know that the letter 
was gone. They were stunned beyond speech 
when Jen said, flushing: “No, Sergeant Tom, I 
am the thief. When I could not wake you, I 
took the letter from your pocket and carried it 
to Inspector Jules last night — or, rather, Ser- 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


129 


geant Gellatly carried them. I wore his cap and 
cloak and passed for him.’^ 

“You carried that letter to Inspector Jules last 
night, Jen?” said the soldier, all his heart in his 
voice. 

Jen saw her father blanch, his mouth open 
blankly, and his lips refuse to utter the words 
on them. For the first time she comprehended 
some danger to him, to herself — to Val! “Fa- 
ther, father,” she said — “what is it?” 

Pierre shrugged his shoulders and rejoined : 
“Eh, the devil! Such mistakes of women. They 
are fools — all.” 

The old man put out a shaking hand and 
caught his daughter’s arm. His look was of 
mingled wonder and despair, as he said, in a 
gasping whisper: “You carried that letter to 
Archangel’s Rise?” 

“Yes,” she answered, faltering now; “Ser- 
geant Tom had said how important it was, you 
remember. That it was his duty to take it to 
Inspector Jules, and be back within forty-eight 
hours. He fell asleep. I could not wake him. 
I thought, what if he were my brother— our 
Val. So, when you and Pretty Pierre went to 
bed, I put on Val’ s clothes, took Sergeant Tom’s 
cloak and hat, carried the orders to J ules, and 
was back here by six o’clock this morning.” 

Sergeant Tom’s eyes told his tale of gratitude. 
He made a step toward her; but the old man, 
with a strange ferocity, motioned him back, say- 
ing: 


130 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Go away from this house. Go quick. Go 
now, I tell you, or by God — I’ll — ” 

Here Pretty Pierre touched his arm. 

Sergeant Tom drew back, not because he 
feared, but as if to get a mental perspective of 
the situatioLL 

Galbraith again said to his daughter: “Jen, 
you carried them papers? You! for him — for 
the Law!” Then he turned from her, and with 
hand clinched and teeth set spoke to the soldier : 
“Haven’t you heard enough? Curse you! why 
don’t you go!” 

Sergeant Tom replied coolly: “Not so fast, 
Galbraith. There’s some mystery in all this. 
There’s my sleep to be accounted for yet. You 
had some reason, some” — he caught the eyes of 
Pierre. He paused. A light began to dawn on 
his mind, and he looked at Jen, who stood rig- 
idly pale, her eyes fixed fearfully, anxiously, 
upon him. She too was beginning to frame in 
her mind a possible horror ; the thing that had 
so changed her father, the cause for drugging 
the soldier. There was a silence in which Pierre 
first, and then all, detected the sound of horses’ 
hoofs. Pierre went to the door and looked out. 
He turned round again, and shrugged his shoul- 
ders with an expression of helplessness. But as 
he saw Jen was about to speak, and Sergeant 
Tom to move toward the door, he put up his 
hand to stay them both, and said: “A little — 
wait!” 

Then all were silent. Jen’s fingers nervously 
clasped and unclasped, and her eyes were strained 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


131 


toward the door. Sergeant Tom stood watching 
her pityingly; the old man’s head was bowed. 
The sound of galloping grew plainer. It stopped. 
An instant and then three horsemen appeared 
before the door. One was Inspector Jules, one 
was Private Waugh, and the other between 
them was — let Jen tell who he was. With an 
agonized cry she rushed from the house and 
threw herself against the saddle, and with her 
arms about the prisoner, cried : 

“Oh, Val, Val, it was you. It was you they 
were after. It was you that — oh, no, no, no! 
My poor Val, and I can’t tell you — I can’t tell 
you!” 

Great as was her grief and self-reproach, she 
felt it would be cruel to tell him the part she had 
taken in placing him in this position. She hated 
herself, but why deepen his misery? His face 
was pale, but it had its old, open, fearless look 
which dissipation had not greatly marred. His 
eyelids quivered, but he smiled, and touching 
her with his steel-bound hands, gently said : 

“Never mind, Jen. It isn’t so bad. You see 
it was this way : Snow Devil said something 
about some one that belonged to me, that cares 
more about me than I deserve. Well^ he died 
sudden, and I was there at the time. That’s 
all. I was trying with the help of Pretty Pierre 
to get out of the country” — and he waved his 
hand toward the half-breed. 

“With Pretty Pierre — Pierre?” she said. 

“Yes, he isn’t all gambler. But they were 


132 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


too quick for me, and here I am. Jules is a 
hustler on the march. But he said he’d stop 
here and let me see you and dad as we go up to 
Fort Desire, and — there, don’t mind. Sis — don’t 
mind it so!” 

Her sobs had ceased, but she clung to him as 
if she could never let him go. Her father stood 
near her, all the lines in his face deepened into 
bitterness. To him Val said: ‘‘Why, dad, 
what’s the matter? Your hand is shaky. Don’t 
you get this thing eatin’ at your heart. It isn’t 
worth it. That Injin would have died if you’d 
been in my place, I guess. Between 5^ou and 
me, I expect to give Jules the slip before we get 
there. ’ ’ And he laughed at the Inspector who 
laughed a little austerely too, and in his heart 
wished that it was any one else he had as a pris- 
oner than Yal Galbraith, who was a favorite 
with the Riders of the Plains. 

Sergeant Tom had been standing in the door- 
way regarding this scene, and working out in 
his mind the complications that had led to 
it. At this point he came forward, and In- 
spector Jules said to him, after a curt saluta- 
tion: 

“You were in a hurry last night. Sergeant 
Gellatly. You don’t seem so pushed for time 
now. Usual thing. When a man seems over- 
zealous — drink, cards, or women behind it. But 
your taste is good, even if, under present circum- 
stances — ” He stopped, for he saw a threaten- 
ing look in the eyes of the other, and that other 
said: “We won’t discuss that matter. Inspector, 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


133 


if you please. I’m ^oing on to Fort Desire now. 
I couldn’t have seen you if I’d wanted to last 
night ” 

“That’s nonsense. If you had waited one 
minute longer at the barracks you could have 
done so. I called to you as you were leaving, 
but you didn’t turn back.” 

“No. I didn’t hear you.” 

All were listening to this conversation, and 
none more curiously than Private W augh. Many 
a time in days to come he pictured the scene for 
the benefit of his comrades. Pretty Pierre, lean- 
ing against the hitching-post near the bar-room, 
said languidly: “But, Inspector, he speaks the 
truth — -quite : that is a virtue of the Riders of 
the Plains.” Val had his eyes on the half-breed, 
and a look of understanding passed between 
them. While Val and his father and sister were 
saying their farewells in few words, but with 
homely demonstrations. Sergeant Tom brought 
his horse round and mounted it. Inspector Jules 
gave the word to move on. As they started, 
Gellatly, who fell behind the others slightly, 
leaned down and whispered : 

“Forgive me, Jen. You did a noble act for 
me, and the life of me would prove to you that 
I’m grateful. It’s sorry, sorry I am. But I’ll 
do what I can for Val, as sure as the heart’s in 
me. Good-by, Jen.” 

She looked up with a faint hope in her eyes. 
“Good-by!’* she said. “I believe you. . . . 
Good-by!” 


r 

134 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 

In a few minutes there was only a cloud of 
dust on the prairie to tell where the Law and 
its quarry were. And of those left behind, one 
was a broken-spirited old man with sorrow melt- 
ing away the sinister look in his face ; one, a 
girl hovering between the tempest of bitterness* 
^and a storm of self-reproach; and one a half- 
breed gambler, who again sat on the bar-counter 
smoking a cigarette and singing to himself, as 
indolently as if he were not in the presence of a 
painful drama of life, perhaps a tragedy. But 
was the song so pointless to the occasion, after 
all? and was the man so abstracted and indiffer- 
ent as he seemed? For thus the song ran: 

“Oh, the bird in a cage and the bird on a tree — 
Voild I ’tis a different fear ! 

The maiden weeps and she bends the knee — 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear ! 

Put the bird in a cage has a friend in the tree, 

And the maiden she dries her tear : 

And the night is dark and no moon you see — 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear ! 

When the doors are open the bird is free — 

Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear !” 




SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


135 


VII. 

These words kept ringing in Jen’s ears as she 
stood again in the doorway that night with her 
face turned to the beacon. How different it 
seemed now! When she«aw it last night it was 
a cheerful spirit of light — a something suggest- 
ing comfort, companionship, aspiration, a friend 
to the traveler, and a mysterious, but delightful, 
association. In the morning when she returned 
from that fortunate, yet most unfortunate, ride, 
it was still burning, but its warm flame was ex- 
hausted in the glow of the life-giving sun; the 
dream and delight of the night robbed of its 
glamour by the garish morning ; like her own 
body, its task done, sinking before the unrelieved 
scrutiny of the day. To-night it burned with 
a different radiance. It came in fiery palpita- 
tions from the earth. It made a sound that was 
now like the moan of pine-trees, now like the 
rumble of far-off artillery. The slight wind that 
blew spread the topmost crest of flame into 
strands of ruddy hair, and looking at it, Jen 
saw herself rocked to and fro by tumultuous 
emotions, yet fuller of strength and larger of life 
than ever she had been. Her hot veins beat 
with determination, with a love which she drove 
back by another, cherished now more than it 
had ever been, because danger threatened the 
boy to whom she had been as a mother. In 


136 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


twenty-four hours she had grown to the full 
stature of love and suffering. 

There were shadows that betrayed less round- 
ness to her face; there were lines that told of 
weariness ; but in her eyes there was a glowing- 
light of hope. She raised her face to the stars 
and unconsciously paraphrasing Pierre’s song- 
said: “Oh, the God that dost save us, hear!” 

A hand touched her arm, and a voice said, 
huskily: “Jen, I wanted to save him and — and 
not let you know of it; that’s all. You’re not 
keepin’ a grudge agin me, my girl?” 

She did not move nor turn her head. “I’ve 
no grudge, father; but — if — if you had told me, 
’t wouldn’t be on my mind that I had made it 
worse for Val.” 

The kindness in the voice reassured him, and 
he ventured to say: “I didn’t think you’d be 
carin’ for one of the Riders of the Plains, Jen.” 

Then the old man trembled lest she should 
resent his words. She seemed about to do so, 
but the flush faded from her brow, and she said, 
simply: “I care for Val most— father. But he 
didn’t know he was getting Val into trouble.” 

She suddenly quivered as a wave of emotion 
passed through her ; and she said, with a sob in 
her voice: “Oh, it’s all scrub country, father, 
and no paths, and— and I wish I had a mother!” 

The old man sat down in the doorway and 
bowed his gray head in his arms. Then, after 
a moment, he whispered : 

“She’s been dead twenty-two years, Jen. The 
day Val was born she went away. I’d a-been a 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


137 


better man if she’d a-lived, Jen; and a better 
father. ’ ’ 

This was an unusual demonstration between 
these two. She watched him sadly for a mo- 
ment, and then, leaning over and touching him 
gently on the shoulder, said: “It’s worse for you 
than it is for me, father. Don’t feel so bad. 
Perhaps we shall save him yet.” 

He caught a gleam of hope in her words : 
“Mebbe, Jen, mebbe!” and he raised his face 
to the light. 

This ritual of affection was crude and un- 
adorned; but it was real. They sat there for 
half an hour, silent. Then a figure came out of 
the shadows behind the house and stood before 
them. It was Pierre. 

“I go to-morrow morning, Galbraith,” he 
said. 

The old man nodded, but did not reply. 

“I go to Fort Desire,” the gambler added. 

Jen faced him. “What do you go there for, 
Pretty Pierre?” 

“It is my whim. Besides, there is Val. He 
might want a horse some dark night. ’ ’ 

“Pierre, do you mean that?” 

“As much as Sergeant Tom means what he 
says. Everyman has his friends. Pretty Pierre 
has a fancy for Val Galbraith — a little. It suits 
him to go to Fort Desire. Jen Galbraith, you 
made a grand ride last night. You did a bold 
thing — all for a man. We shall see what he 
will do for you. And if he does nothing — ah ! 
you can trust the tongue of Pretty Pierre. He 


138 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 

will wish he could die, instead of — Eh, Men, 
good-night!” 

He moved away. Jen followed him. She 
held out her hand. It was the first time she 
had ever done so with this man. 

“I believe you,” she said. “I believe that 
you mean well to our Val. I am sorry that I 
called you a devil. ’ ’ 

He smiled. “Jen Galbraith, that is nothing. 
You spoke true. But devils have their friends 
— and their whims. So you see, good-night.” 

“Mebbe it will come out all right, Jen — meb- 
be!” said the old man. 

But Jen did not reply. She was thinking 
hard, her eyes upon the Prairie Star. Living 
life to the hilt greatly illumines the outlook of 
the mind. She was beginning to understand 
that evil is not absolute, and that good is often 
an occasion more than a condition. 

There was a long silence again. At last the 
old man rose to go and reduce the volume of 
flame for the night; but Jen stopped him. “No, 
father, let it burn all it can to-night. IPs com- 
forting.” 

“Mebbe so — mebbe!” he said. 

A faint refrain came to them from within the 
house : 


“When doors are open the bird is free — 
Oh, the sweet Saint Gabrielle hear 1” 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


139 


vin. 

It was a lovely morning. The prairie bil- 
lowed away endlessly to the south, and heaved 
away in vastness to the north ; and the fresh, 
sharp air sent the blood beating through the 
veins. In the bar-room some early'traveler was 
talking to Peter Galbraith. A wandering band 
of Indians was camped about a mile away, the 
only sign of humanity in the waste. Jen sat in 
the doorway culling dried apples. Though trag- 
edies occur in lives of the humble, they must 
still do the dull and ordinary task. They can- 
not stop to cherish morbidness, to feed upon 
their sorrow; they must care for themselves 
and labor for others. And well is it for them 
that it is so. 

The Indian camp brings unpleasant memories 
to Jen’s mind. She knows it belongs to old 
Sun-in-the- North, and that he will not come to 
see her now, nor could she, or would she, go to 
him. Between her and that race there can never 
again be kindly communion. And now she 
sees, for the first time, two horsemen riding 
slowly in the track from Port Desire toward Gal- 
braith’s Place. She notices that one sits upright, 
and one seems leaning forward on his horse’s 
neck. She shades her eyes with her hand, but 
she cannot distinguish who they are. But she 


140 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


has seen men tied to their horses ride as that 
man is riding, when stricken with fever, bruised 
by falling timber, lacerated by a grizzly, wounded 
by a bullet, or crushed by a herd of buffaloes. 
She remembered at that moment the time that a 
horse had struck Val with its forefeet, and torn 
the flesh from his chest, and how he had been 
brought home tied to a broncho’s back. 

The thought of this drove her into the house, 
to haveYal’s bed prepared for the sufferer, who- 
ever he was: Almost unconsciously she put on 
the little table beside the bed a bunch of everlast- 
ing prairie flowers, and shaded the light to the 
point of quiet and comfort. 

Then she went outside again. The travelers 
now were not far away. She recognized the 
upright rider. It was Pretty Pierre. The other 
— she could not tell. She called to her father. 
She had a fear which she did not care to face 
alone. “See! see! father,” she said — “Pretty 
Pierre and — and can it be Val?” For the mo- 
ment she seemed unable to stir. But the old 
man shook his head, and said : 

“No, Jen, it can’t be. It isn’t Val.” 

Then another thought possessed her. Her lips 
trembled, and, throwing her head back as does a 
deer when it starts to shake off its pursuers by 
flight, she ran swiftly toward the riders. The 
traveler standing beside Galbraith said : 

“That man is hurt, wounded probably. I 
didn’t expect to have a patient in the middle 
of the plains. I’m a doctor. Perhaps I can be 
of use here?” 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


141 


When a hundred yards away Jen recognized 
the recumbent rider. A thousand thoughts 
flashed through her brain. What had happened? 
Why was he dressed in civilian’s clothes? A 
moment, and she was at his horse’s head. An- 
other, and her warm hand clasped the pale, 
moist, and wrinkled one which hung by the 
horse’s neck. His coat at the shoulder was 
stained with blood, and there was a handker- 
chief about his head. This — this was Sergeant 
Tom Grellatly! 

She looked up at Pierre, an agony of inquiry 
in her eyes, and pointing mutely to the wounded 
man. Pierre spoke with a tone of seriousness 
not common to his voice: “You see, Jen Gal- 
braith, it was brave. Sergeant Tom one day 
resigns the Mounted Police. He leaves the 
Riders of the Plains. That is not easy to under- 
stand, for he is in much favor with the officers. 
But he buys himself out, and there is the end of 
the Sergeant and his triple chevron. That is 
one day. That night, two men on a ferry are 
crossing the Saskatchewan at Fort Desire. They 
are fired at from the shore behind. One man is 
hit twice. But they get across, cut the ferry 
loose, mount horses, and ride away together. 
The man that was hit— yes. Sergeant Tom. The 
other that was not hit was Val Galbraith.” 

Jen gave a cry of mingled joy and pain, and 
said with Tom Gellatly’s cold hand clasped to 
her bosom: 

“Yal, our Yal, is free, is safe?” 

“Yes, Yal is free and safe — quite. The Riders 


142 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, 


of the Plains could not cross the river. It was 
too high. And so Tom Gellatly and Val got 
away. Val rides straight for the American 
border, and the other rides here.’’ 

They were now near the house, but Jen said, 
eagerly : 

“Goon. Tell me all.” 

“I knew what had happened soon, and I rode 
away, too, and last night I found Tom Gellatly 
lying beside his horse on the prairie. I have 
brought him here to you. You two are even 
now, Jen Galbraith.” 

They were at the tavern door. The traveler 
and Pierre lifted down the wounded and uncon- 
scious man, and brought him and laid him on 
Val Galbraith’s bed. The traveler examined 
the wounds in the shoulder and the head, and 
said: 

“The head is all right. If I can get the 
bullet out of the shoulder he’ll be safe enough 
— in time.” 

The surgery was skillful but rude, for proper 
instruments were not at hand; and in a few 
hours he, whom we shall still call Sergeant Tom, 
lay quietly sleeping, the horrible pallor gone 
from his face and the feeling of death from his 
hand. 

It was near midnight when he waked. Jen 
was sitting beside him. He looked round and 
saw her. Her face was touched with the light 
that shone from the Prairie Star. “Jen,” he 
said, and held out his hand. 


SHE OP THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


143 


She turned from the window and stood beside 
his bed. She took his outstretched hand. 

“You are better, Sergeant Tom?” she said, 
gently. 

“Yes, I’m better; but it’s not Sergeant Tom 
I am any longer, Jen.” 

“I forgot that.” 

“I owed you a great debt, Jen. I couldn’t 
remain one of the Riders of the Plains and try 
to pay it. I left them. Then I tried to save Yal, 
and I did. I knew how to do it without get- 
ting any one else into trouble. It is well to knov/ 
the trick of a lock and the hour that guard is 
changed. I had left, but I relieved guard that 
night just the same. It was a new man on 
watch. It’s only a minute I had; for the regu- 
lar relief watch was almost at my heels. I got 
Yal out just in time. They discovered us, and 
we had a run for it. Pretty Pierre has told you. 
That’s right, Yal is safe now — ” 

She said in a low, strained voice, interrupt- 
ing him : 

“Did Yal leave you wounded so on the 
prairie?” 

“Don’t let that ate at your heart. No, he 
didn’t. I hurried him off, and he didn’t know 
how badly I was hit. But I— I’ve paid my 
debt, haven’t I, Jen?” 

With eyes that could not see for tears she 
touched pityingly, lovingly, the wounds on his 
head and shoulder, and said: “These pay a 
greater debt than you ever owed me. You risked 


144 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


your life for me — yes, for me! You have given 
up everything to do it. I can’t pay you the 
great difference. No, never!” 

“Yes — yes, you can, if you will, Jerx. It’s as 
aisy! If you’ll say what I say. I’ll give you 
quit of that difference, as you call it, for ever 
and ever. ’ ’ 

“First, tell me. Is Vai quite, quite safe?” 
“Yes, Jen, he’s safe over the border by this 
time ; and to tell you the truth, the Riders of the 
Plains wouldn’t be dyin’ to arrest him again if 
he was in Canada, which he isn’t. It’s little 
they wanted to fire at us, I know, when we were 
crossin’ the river, but it had to be done, you 
see, and us within sight. Will you say what I 
ask you, Jen?” 

She did not speak, but pressed his hand ever 
so slightly. 

“Tom Gellatly, I promise,” he said. 

“Tom Gellatly, I promise — ” 

“To give you as much — ” 

“To give you as much — ” 

“Love— 

There was a pause and then she falter! ngiy 
said, “Love — ” 

“As you give to me — ” 

“As you give to me — ” 

“And I’ll take you poor as you are — ” 

“And I’ll take you poor as you are — ” 

“To be my husband as long as you live — ” 
“To be my husband as long as you live—” 
“So help me, God.’’ 

“So help me, God.” 


SHE OF THE TRIPLE CHEVRON. 


145 


She stooped with dropping tears, and he kissed 
her once. Then what was girl in her timidly 
drew back, while what was woman in her, and 
therefore maternal, yearned over the sufferer. 

They had uot seen the figure of an old man at 
the door. They did not hear him enter. They 
only knew of Peter Galbraith’s presence when 
he said : 

“Mebbe — mebbe I might say Amen!” 





Three Outlaws. 


The missionary at Fort Anne of the H. B. C. 
was violently in earnest. Before he piously fol- 
lowed the latest and most amply endowed batch 
of settlers, who had in turn preceded the new 
railway to the Fort, the word scandal had no 
place in the vocabulary of the citizens. The H. 
B. C. had never imported it into the Chinook 
language, the common meeting-ground of ail 
the tribes of the North; and the British men 
and native-born, who made the Fort their home, 
or place of sojourn, had never found need for 
its use. Justice was so quicklj^ distributed, 
men were so open in their conduct, good and 
bad, that none looked askance, nor put their 
actions in ambush, nor studied innuendo. But 
this was not according to the new dispensation : 
that is, the dispensation which shrewdly fol- 
lowed the settlers, who as shrewdly preceded 
the railway. And the dispensation and ' the 
missionary were known also as the ReNrerend 
Ezra Badgley, who, on his own declaration, 
in times past had “a call” to preach, and in 
the far East had served as local preacher, then 
probationer, then went on circuit, and now was 
missionary in a district of which the choice did 
( 146 ) 


THREE OUTLA.WS. 


147 


credit to his astuteness, and gave abundant room 
for his piety and holy rage against the Philis- 
tines> He loved a word for righteous mouth- 
ing, and in a moment of inspiration pagan and 
scandal came to him. Upon these two words 
he stamped, through them he perspired might- 
ily, and with them he clinched his stubby fin- 
gers: such fingers as dug trenches, or snatched 
lewdly at soft flesh, in days of barbarian battle. 
To him all men were Pagans who loved not the 
sound of his voice, nor wrestled with him in 
prayer before the Lord, nor fed him with rich 
food, nor gave him much strong green tea to 
drink. But these men were of opaque stuff, 
and were not dismayed, and they called him 
St. Anthony, and with a prophetic and deadly 
patience waited. The time came when the mis- 
sionary shook his denouncing finger mostly at 
Pretty Pierre, who carefully nursed his silent 
wrath until the occasion should arrive for a 
delicate revenge which hath its hour with every 
man, if, hating, he knows how to bide the will 
of Fate. 

The hour came. A girl had been found dying 
on the roadside beyond the Fort by the drunken 
doctor of the place and Pierre. Pierre was with 
her when she died. 

“An’ who’s to bury her, the poor colleen?” 
said Shon McGann afterward. 

Pierre musingly replied: “She is a Protest- 
ant. There is but one man.” 

After many pertinent and vigorous remarks, 
Shon added: 


148 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“A Pagan is it he calls you, Pierre: you 
that’s had the holy water on y’r forehead, and 
the cross on the water, and that knows the book 
o’ the Mass like the cards in a pack? Sinner y’ 
are, and so are we all, God save us ! say I ; and 
weavin’ the stripes for our backs He may be, 
and little I’d think of Him failin’ in that: but 
Pagan ! — faith, it’s black should be the white of 
the eyes of that preachin’ sneak, and a rattle 
of teeth in his throat — divils go round me! ” 

The half-breed, still musing, replied: “An 
eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth — is that 
it, Shon?” 

“Niver a word truer by song or by book, and 
stand by the text, say I. For Papist I am, and 
Papist are you; and the imps from below in y’r 
fingers whin poker is the game; and outlaws as 
they call us both — you for what it doesn’t con- 
cern me, and I for a wild night in ould Donegal ; 
— but Pagan ! Wurra ! whin shall it be, Pierre?” 

“When shall it be?” 

“True for you. The teeth in his throat and 
a lump to his eye, and what more be the will o’ 
God. Fightin’ there’ll be, av coorse; but by 
you I’ll stand, and sorra inch will I give, if 
they’ll do it with sticks or with guns, and not 
with the blisterin’ tongue that’s lied of me and 
me f rinds— for frind I call you, Pierre, that 
loved me little in days gone by. And proud 
I am not of you, nor you of me; but we’ve 
tasted the bitter of avil days together, and 
divils surround me, if I don’t go down with 
you or come up with you, whichever it be ! For 


THREE OUTLAWS. 


149 


there’s dirt, as I say, on their tongues, and over 
their shoulder they look at you, and not with an 
eye full front.” 

Pierre was cool, even pensive. His lips parted 
slightly once or twice, and showed a row of 
white, malicious teeth. For the rest, he looked 
as if he were politely interested but not moved 
by the excitement of the other. He slowly rolled 
a cigarette and replied: “He says it is a scan- 
dal that I live at Fort Anne. Well, I was here 
before he came, and I shall be here after he goes 
— yes. A scandal — Tsh! what is that? You 
know the word Baca of the Book? Well, there 
shall be more Baca soon — perhaps. Ho, there 
shall not be fighting as you think, Shon; but” 
— here Pierre rose, came over, and spread his 
fingers lightly on Shon’s breast — “but this thing 
is between this man and me, Shon McGann, and 
you shall see a great matter. Perhaps there will 
be blood, perhaps not — perhaps only an end.” 
And the half-breed looked up at the Irishman 
from under his dark brows so covertly and 
meaningly that Shon saw visions of a trouble 
as silent as a plague, as resistless as a great 
fiood. This noiseless vengeance was not after 
his own heart. He almost shivered as the deli- 
cate fingers drummed on his breast. 

“Angels begird me. Pretty Pierre, but it’s 
little I’d like you for enemy o’ mine; for I 
know that you’d wait for y’r foe with death in 
y’r hand, and pity far from y’r heart; and y’d 
smile as you pulled the blackcap on y’r head, 
and laugh as you drew the life out of him, God 


150 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


knows how! Arrah, give me, say I, the crack 
of a stick, the bite of a gun, or the clip of a 
saber’s edge, with a shout in y’r mouth the 
while! ” 

Though Pierre still listened lazily, there was 
a wicked fire in his eyes. His words now came 
from his teeth with cutting precision: “I have 
a great thought to-night, Shon McGann. I will 
tell you when we meet again. But, my friend, 
one must not be too rash — no, not too brutal. 
Even the saber should fall at the right time, 
and then swift and still. Noise is not battle. 
Well, au revoir ! To-morrow I shall tell you 
many things.” He caught Shon’s hand quickly, 
as quickly dropped it, aud went out, indolently 
singing a favorite song — ^^Voici le Sabre de 
mon PereP^ 

It was dark. Pretty Pierre stood still, and 
thought for a while. At last he spoke aloud: 
“Well, I shall do it now I have him — so!” 
And he opened and shut his hand swiftly and 
firmly. He moved on, avoiding the more habited 
parts of the place, and by a roundabout canae to 
a house standing very close to the bank of the 
river. He went softly to the door and listened. 
Light shone through the curtain of a window. 
He went to the window and looked beneath the 
curtain. Then he came back to the door, opened 
it very gently, stepped inside, and closed it be- 
hind him. 

A man seated at a table, eating, rose; a man 
on whom greed had set its mark — greed of the 
fiesh, greed of men’s praise, greed of money. 


THREE OUTLAWS. 


151 


His frame was thick-set, his body was heavily 
nourished, his eye was shifty but intelligent; 
and a close observer would have seen something 
elusive, something furtive and sinister, in his 
face. His lips were greasy with meat as he 
stood up, and a fear sprang to his face, so that 
its fat looked sickly. But he said hoarsely, and 
with an attempt at being brave: “How dare 
you enter my house without knocking? What 
do you want?” 

The half-breed waved a hand protestingly to- 
ward him. “PardoTi/” he said. “Be seated, 
and finish your meal. Do you know me?” 

“Yes, I know you.” 

“Well, as I said, do not stop your meal. I 
have come to speak with you very quietly about 
a scandal — a scandal, you understand. This is 
Sunday night, a good time to talk of such 
things.” And Pierre seated himself at the 
table, opposite the man. 

But the man replied: “I have nothing to say 
to you. You are — ” 

The half-breed interrupted: “Yes, I know, a 
Pagan fattening” — here he smiled, and looked 
at his thin hands — “ ‘fattening for the shambles 
of the damned, ’ as you have said from the pul- 
pi t, Reverend Ezra Badgley. But you will per- 
mit me — a sinner as you say — to speak to you 
like this while you sit down and eat. I regret 
to disturb you, but you will sit, eh?” 

Pierre’s tone was smooth and low, almost 
deferential, and his eyes, wide open now, and 
hot with some hidden purpose, were fixed com- 


152 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


pellingly on the man. The missionary sat, and, 
having recovered slightly, fumbled with a knife 
and fork. A napkin was still beneath his greasy 
chin. He did not take it away. 

Pierre then spoke slowly: 

“Yes, it is a scandal concerning a sinner — and 
a Pagan. ... Will you permit me to light a 
cigarette? Thank you. . . . You have said 
many harsh things about me : well, as you see, 
I am amiable. I lived at Port Anne before you 
came. They call me Pretty Pierre. Why is 
my cheek so? Because I drink no wine; I eat 
not much. Pardon ! pork like that on your 
plate — no! no! I do not take green tea as 
there in your cup; I do not love women, one 
or many. Again, Pardon! I say.’’ 

The other drew his brows together with an 
attempt at pious frowning and indignation; but 
there was a cold, sneering smile now turned, upon 
him, that changed the frown to anxiety, and 
made his lips twitch, and the food he had eaten 
grow heavy within him. 

“I come to the scandal slowly. The woman? 
She was a young girl traveling from the far 
East, to search for a man who had — spoiled 
her. She was found by me and another. Ah, 
you start so! . . . Will you not listen? . . . 
Well, she died to-night.” 

Here the missionary gasped, and caught with 
both hands at the table. 

“But before she died she gave two things into 
my hands: a packet of letters (a man is a fool 
to write such letters!) and a small bottle of 


THREE OUTLAWS. 


153 


poison — laudanum, old-fashioned but sure. The 
letters were from the man at Fort Anne — the 
man^ you hear! The other was for her death, 
if he would not take her to his arms again. 
Women are mad when they love. And so she 
came to Fort Anne, but not in time. The 
scandal is great, because the man is holy — sit 
down! ” 

The half-breed said the last two words sharply, 
but not loudly. They both sat down slowly again, 
looking each other in the eyes. Then Pierre drew 
from his pocket a small bottle and a packet of let- 
ters, and held them before him. “I have this to 
say : there are citizens of Fort Anne who stand 
for justice more than law; who have no love for 
the ways of St. Anthony. There is a pagan, 
too, an outlaw, who knows when it is time to 
give blow for blow with the holy man. Well, 
we understand each other, eh?” 

The elusive, sinister look in the missionary’s 
face was etched in strong lines now. A dogged 
sullenness hung about his lips. He noticed that 
one hand only of Pretty Pierre was occupied with 
the relics of the dead girl; the other was free to 
act suddenly on a hip pocket. ‘ ‘What do you 
want me to do?” he said, not whiningly, for 
beneath the selfish flesh and shallow outworks 
there were the elements of a warrior— all pulpy 
now, but they were there. 

“This,” was the reply: “for you to make one 
more outlaw at Port Anne by drinking what is 
in this bottle — sit down, quick, by God!” He 
placed the bottle within reach of the other. 


154 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Then you shall have these letters; and there 
is the fire. After? Well, you will have a great 
sleep, the good people will find you, they will 
bury you, weeping much, and no one knows 
here but me. Refuse that, and there is the 
other, the Law — ah, the poor girl was so very 
young! — and the wild Justice which is some- 
times quicker than Law. Well? well?’’ 

The missionary sat as if paralyzed, his face 
all gray, his eyes fixed on the half-breed. “Are 
you man or devil?” he said at length. 

With a slight, fantastic gesture Pierre replied: 
“It was said that a devil entered into me at birth, 
but that perhaps was mere scandal. You shall 
think as you will.” 

There was silence. The sullenness about the 
missionary’s lips became charged with a con- 
tempt more animal than human. The Rev- 
erend Ezra Badgley knew that the man before 
him was absolute in his determination, and that 
the Pagans of Fort Anne would show him little 
mercy, while his fiock would leave him to his 
fate. He looked at the bottle. The silence 
grew, so that the ticking of the watch in the 
missionary’s pocket could be heard plainly, 
having for its background of sound the con- 
tinuous swish of the river. Pretty Pierre’s 
eyes were never taken off the other, whose gaze, 
again, was fixed upon the bottle with a terrible 
fascination. An hour, two hours passed. The 
fire burned lower. It was midnight : and now 
the watch no longer ticked ; it had fulfilled its 
day’s work. The missionary shuddered slightly 


THREE OUTLAWS. 


155 


at this. He looked up to see the resolute gloom 
of the half-breed’s eyes, and that sneering smile 
fixed upon him still. Then he turned once more 
to the bottle. . . . His heavy hand moved slowly 
toward it. His stubby fingers perspired and 
showed sickly in the light. . . . They closed 
about the bottle. Then suddenly he raised it, 
and drained it at a draught. He sighed once 
heavily, and as if a great inward pain was over. 
He rose and took the letters silently pushed 
toward him, and dropped them in the fire. 
He went to the window, raised it, and threw 
the bottle into the river. The cork was left: 
Pierre pointed to it. He took it up with a 
strange smile and thrust it into the coals. 
Then he sat down by the table; he leaned his 
arms upon it, his eyes staring painfully before 
h\m, and the forgotten napkin still about his 
neck. Soon the eyes closed, and, with a moan 
on his lips, his head dropped forward on his 
arms. . . . Pierre rose, and, looking at the 
figure soon to be breathless as the baked meats 
about it, said: “Well, he was not all coward. 
No.” 

Then he turned and went out into the night. 


Shon McQann’s Toboggan Ride. 


“Oh, it’s down the long side of Farcalladen Rise, 

With the knees pressing hard to the saddle, my men; 
With the sparks from the hoofs giving light to the eyes. 
And our hearts beating hard as we rode to the glen ! — 

“And it’s back with the ring of the chain and the spur. 
And it’s back with the sun on the hill and the moor. 
And it’s back is the thought sets my pulses astir ! — 

But I’ll never go back to Farcalladen more.’’ 

Shon McGann was lying on a pile of buffalo 
robes in a mountain hut — an Australian would 
call it a humpey — singing thus to himself with 
his pipe between his teeth. In the room, besides 
Shon, were Pretty Pierre, Jo Gordineer, the 
Honorable Just Trafford, called by his compan- 
ions simply “The Honorable,” and Prince Levis, 
the owner of the establishment. Not tha^t Mon- 
sieur Levis, the French Canadian, was really a 
Prince. The name was given to him with a 
humorous cynicism peculiar to the Rockies. We 
have little to do with Prince Levis here ; but 
since he may appear elsewhere, this explanation 
is made. 

Jo Gordineer had been telling The Honorable 
about the ghost of Guidon Mountain, and Pretty 
Pierre was collaborating with their host in the 
( 156 ) 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 157 


preparation -of what, in the presence of the Law 
— that is of the North-West Mounted Police — 
was called ginger-tea, in consideration of the 
prohibition statute. 

Shon McGann had been left to himself — an 
unusual thing; for every one had a shot at Shon 
^hen opportunity occurred; and never a bull’s- 
eye could they make on him. His wit was like 
the shield of a certain personage of mythology. 

He had wandered on from verse to verse of the 
song with one eye on the collaborators and an 
ear open to The Honorable’s polite exclamations 
of wonder. Jo had, however, come to the end 
of his weird tale — for weird it certainly was, told 
at the foot of Guidon Mountain itself, and in a 
region of vast solitudes — the pair of chemists 
were approaching “the supreme union of unc- 
tuous elements, ’ ’ as The Honorable put it, and 
in the silence that fell for a moment there crept 
the words of the singer : 

“And it’s down the long side of Farcalladen Rise, 

And it’s swift as an arrow and straight as a spear — ” 

Jo Gordineer interrupted. 

“Say, Shon, when shall you get through with 
that toboggan ride of yours? Isn’t there any 
end to it?” 

But Shon was looking with both eyes now at 
the collaborators, and he sang softly on : 

“And it’s keen as the frost when the summer-time dies, 

That we rode to the glen and with never a fear.” 


And then he added : 


158 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


‘‘The end’s cut off, Joey, me boy; but what’s 
a toboggan ride, anyway?” 

“Listen to that, Pierre. I’ll be eternally shiv- 
ered if he knows what a toboggan ride is!” 

“Hot shivers it’ll be for you, Joey, me boy, 
and no quinine over the bar, aither,” said 
Shon. 

. “Tell him what a toboggan ride is, Pierre.’*^ 

And Pretty Pierre said : 

“Eh, well. I will tell you — it is like — no, you 
have the word precise, Joseph! Eh? What?” 

Pierre then added something in French. Shon 
did not understand it, but he saw The Honora- 
ble smile, so with a gentle kind of contempt he 
went on singing : 

“And it’s hey for the hedge, and it’s ney for the wall ! 

And it’s over the stream with an echoing cry ; 

And there’s three fled forever from old Donegal, 

And there’s two that have shown how bold Irishmen 
die.” 

The Honorable then said : 

“What is that all about, Shon? I never heard 
the song before.” 

“Ho more you did. And I wish I could see 
the lad that wrote that song, livin’ or dead. 
If one of ye’s will tell me about your toboggan 
rides. I’ll unfold about ‘The Song of Farcal- 
laden Rise.’ ” 

Prince Levis passed the liquor. Pretty Pierre, 
seated on a candle-box, with a glass in his deli- 
cate fingers, said : 

“Eh, well. The Honorable has much language ; 


SHON m‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 


159 


he can speak, precise — this would be better with 
a little lemon, just a little — The Honorable, he, 
perhaps, will tell. Eh?’’ 

Pretty Pierre was showing his white teeth. 
At this stage in his career, he did not love The 
Honorable. The Honorable understood that, but 
he made clear to Shon’s mind what toboggan- 
ing is. 

And Shon on his part, with fresh and hearty 
voice, touched here and there by a plaintive 
modulation, told about that ride on Farcalladen 
Rise ; a tale of broken laws, and fight and fight- 
ing, and death and exile ; and never a word of 
hatred in it all. 

‘‘And the writer of the song, who was he?” 
said The Honorable. 

“A gentleman after God’s own heart. Heaven 
rest his soul, if he’s dead, which Fm thinkin’ is 
so, and give him the luck of the world if he’s 
livin’, say I. But it’s little I know what’s come 
to him. In the heart of Australia I saw ^him 
last; and mates we were together after gold. 
And little gold did we get but what was in the 
hearf of him. And we parted one day, I carryin’ 
the song that he wrote for me of Farcalladen 
Rise, and the memory of him; and him givin’ 
me the word— ‘ITl not forget you, Shon, me boy, 
whatever comes ; remember that. And a short 
pull of the Three- Star together for the partin’ 
salute,’ says he. And the Three-Star in one 
sup each we took, as solemn as the Mass, and he 
went away toward Cloncurry and I to the coast; 
and that’s the last that I saw of him, now three 


160 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


years gone. And here I am, and I wish I was 
with him wherever he is.” 

“What was his name?” said The Honorable. 

“Lawless.” 

The fingers of The Honorable trembled on his 
Digar. “Very interesting, Shon,” he said, as he 
rose, puffing hard till his face was in a cloud of 
smoke. “You had many adventures together, 
I suppose,” he continued. 

“Adventures we had and sufferin’ be whiles, 
and fun, too, to the neck and flowin’ over.” 

“You’ll spin us a long yarn about them an- 
other night, Shon, ’ ’ said The Honorable. 

“I’ll do it now — a yarn as long as the lies of 
the Government; and proud of the chance.” 

“Not to-night, Shon” (there was a kind of 
huskiness in the voice of The Honorable) ; “it’s- 
time to turn in. We’ve a long tramp over the 
glacier to-morrow, and we must start at sun- 
rise. ’ ’ 

The Honorable was in command of the party, 
though Jo Gordineer was the guide, and all 
were, for the moment, miners, making for the 
little Goshen Field over in Pipi Valley. — At 
least Pretty Pierre said he was a miner. 

No one thought of disputing the authority of 
The Honorable, and they all rose. 

In a few minutes there was silence in the hut, 
save for the oracular breathing of Prince Levis 
and the sparks from the fire. But The Honora- 
ble did not sleep well ; he lay and watched the 
fire through most of the night. 


SHON M^GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 161 


The day was clear, glowing, decisive. ITot a 
cloud in the curve of azure, not a shiver of wind 
down the canon, not a frown in Nature, if we 
except the lowering shadows from the shoulders 
of the giants of the range. Crowning the shad- 
ows was a splendid helmet of light, rich with 
the dyes of the morning ; the pines were touched 
with a brilliant if austere warmth. The pride 
of lofty lineage and severe isolation was regnant 
over all. And up through the splendor, and the 
shadows, and the loneliness, and the austere 
warmth, must our travelers go. Must go? 
Scarcely that, but The Honorable had made up 
his mind to cross the glacier and none sought to 
dissuade him from his choice ; the more so, be- 
cause there was something of danger in the busi- 
ness. Pretty Pierre had merely sh: ’^’gged his 
shoulders at the suggestion, and had said : 

‘‘Oh, well, the higher we go the faster we live, 
that is something.” 

“Sometimes we live ourselves to death too 
quickly. In my schooldays I watched a mouse 
in a jar of oxygen do that,” said The Honorable. 

“That is the best way to die,” said the half- 
breed — ‘ ‘ much. ’ ’ 

Jo Gordineer had been over the path before. 
He was confident of the way, and proud of his 
office of guide. 

“Climb Mont Blanc if you will,” said The 
Honorable, “but leave me these white bastions 
of the Selkirks. ” 

Even so. They have not seen the snowy hills 
of God who have yet to look upon the Rocky 


162 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Mountains, absolute, stupendous, sublimely 
grave. 

Jo Gordineer and Pretty Pierre strode on to- 
gether. They being well away from the other 
two. The Honorable turned and said to Shon : 

“What was the name of the man who wrote 
that song of yours, again, Shon?” 

“Lawless.” 

“Yes, but his first name?” 

“Duke — Duke Lawless.” 

There was a pause, in which the other seemed 
to be intently studying the glacier above them. 
Then he said: “What was he like? — in appear- 
ance, I mean.” 

“A trifle more than your six feet, about your 
color of hair and eyes, and with a trick of smil- 
in’ that would melt the heart of an exciseman, 
and O’Connell’s own at a joke, barrin’ a time or 
two that he got hold of a pile of papers from the 
ould country. By the grave of St. Shon ! thin 
he was as dry of fun as a piece of blotting-paper. 
And he said at last, before he was aisy and free 
again, ‘Shon,’ says he, ‘it’s better to burn your 
ships behind ye, isn’t it?’ 

“And I, havin’ thought of a glen in ould Ire- 
land that I’ll never see again, nor any that’s in 
it, said: ‘Not only burn them to the water’s 
edge, Duke Lawless, but swear to your own soul 
that they never lived but in the dreams of the 
night.’ 

“ ‘You’re right there, Shon,’ says he, and 
after that no luck was bad enough to cloud the 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 163 


gay heart of him, and bad enough it was some- 
times.” 

“And why do you fear that he is not alive?” 

“Because I met an old mate of mine one day 
on the Frazer, and he said that Lawless had 
never come to Clone urry ; and a hard, hard road 
it was to travel. ” 

Jo Gordineer was calling to them and there 
the conversation ended. In a few minutes the 
four stood on the edge of the glacier. Each man 
had a long hickory stick which served as alpen- 
stock, a bag hung at his side, and tied to his 
back was his gold-pan, the hollow side in, of 
course. Shon’s was tied a little lower down 
than the others. 

They passed up this solid river of ice, this 
giant power at endless strife with the high hills, 
up toward its head. The Honorable was the first 
to reach the point of vantage, and to look down 
upon the vast and wandering fissures, the frigid 
bulwarks, the great fortresses of ice, the cease- 
less snows, the aisles of this mountain sanctu- 
ary through which Nature’s splendid anthems 
rolled. Shon was a short distance below with 
his hand over his eyes, sweeping the semi-circle 
of glory. 

Suddenly there was a sharp cry from Pierre : 
“ Jfon Dieu ! Look !” 

Shon McGann had fallen on a smooth pave- 
ment of ice. The gold-pan was beneath him, 
and down the glacier he was whirled — whirled, 
for Shon had thrust his heels in the snow and 
ice, and the gold-pan performed a series of cir- 


164 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


cles as it sped down the incline. His fingers 
clutched the ice and snow, but they only left a 
red mark of blood behind. Must he go the whole 
course of that frozen slide, plump into the wild 
depths below? 

Dieu! — Mon Dieu!^^ said Pretty 
Pierre, piteously. The face of The Honorable 
was set and tense. Jo Gordineer’s hand clutched 
his throat as if he choked. Still Shon sped. It 
was a matter of seconds only. The tragedy 
crowded to the awful end. 

But, no. 

There was a tilt in the glacier, and the gold- 
pan, suddenly swirling, again swung to the 
outer edge, and shot over. 

As if hurled from a catapult, the Irishman 
was ejected from the white monster’s back. He 
fell on a wide shelf of ice, covered with light 
snow, through which he was tunneled, and 
dropped on another ledge below, near the path 
by which he and his companions had ascended. 

‘‘Shied from the finish, by God!” said Jo 
Gordineer. 

pauvre Shon!” added Pretty Pierre. 

The Honorable was making his way down, 
his brain haunted by the words, “He’ll never go 
back to Farcalladen more.” 

But Jo was right. 

For Shon McGann was alive. He lay breath- 
less, helpless, for a moment ; then he sat up and 
scanned his lacerated fingers : he looked up the 
path by which he had come; he looked down 
the path he seemed destined to go; he started 


SHON M‘GANN’s toboggan RIDE. 165 


to scratch his head, but paused in the act, hy> 
reason of his fingers. Then he said : 

‘‘It’s my mother 'Wouldn’t know my from a 
can of cold meat if I hadn’t stopped at this sta- 
tion; but wurrawurra! what a car it was to 
come in !” And he looked at his tattered clothes 
and bare elbows. He then unbuckled the gold- 
pan, and no easy task was it with ragged 
fingers. 

“’Twas not for deep minin’ I brought ye,” he 
said to the pan, “nor for scrapin’ the clothes 
from me back.” 

Just then The Honorable came up. “Shon, 
my man . . . alive, thank God! How is it 
with you?” 

“I’m hardly worth the lookin’ at. I wouldn’t 
turn my back to ye for a ransom.” 

“It’s enough that you’re here at all.” 

“Ah, voila ! this Irishman!” said Pretty 
Pierre, as his light fingers touched Shon’s bruised 
arm gently. 

This from Pretty Pierre ! 

There was that in the voice which went to 
Shon’s heart. Who could have guessed that this 
outlaw of the North would ever show a sign of 
sympathy or friendship for anybody? But it 
goes to prove that you can never be exact in your 
estimate of character. Jo Gordineer only said 
jestingly : 

“Say, now, what are you doing, Shon, bring- 
ing us down here, when we might be well into 
the Valley by this time?” 

‘ ‘ That in your face and the hair off your head, ’ ’ 


166 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE.. 


said Shon; “it’s little you know a toboggan ride 
when you see one. I’ll take my share of the 
grog, by the same token."” , 

The Honorable uncorked his flask. Shon threw 
back his head with a laugh. 

“For it’s rest when the gallop is over, me men ! 

And it's here’s to the lads that have ridden their last ; 

And it’s here’s — ’’ 

But Shon had fainted with the flask in his 
hand and this snatch of a song on his lips. 

They reached shelter that night. Had it not 
been for the accident, they would have got to 
their destination in the Valley; but here they 
were twelve miles from it. Whether this was 
fortunate or unfortunate may be seen later. Com- 
fortably bestowed in this mountain tavern, after 
they had toasted and eaten their venison and 
lighted their pipes, they drew about the fire. 

Besides the four, there was a figure that lay 
sleeping in a corner on a pile of pine branches, 
wrapped in a bearskin robe. Whoever it was 
slept soundly. 

“And what w^as it like — the gold-pan flier — 
the toboggan ride, Shon?” remarked Jo Gordi- 
neer. 

“What was it like? — what was it like?” re- 
plied Shon. “Sure, I couldn’t see what it was 
like for the stars that were hittin’ me in the eyes. 
There wasn’t any w^orld at all. I was ridin’ on 
a streak of lightnin’ and nivir a rubber for the 
wheels; and my fingers makin’ stripes of blood 
on the snow ; and now the stars that wer^ hittin’ 


SHON m‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 167 


me were white, and thin they were red, and 
sometimes blue — ” 

“The Stars and Stripes,” inconsiderately re- 
marked Jo Gordineer. 

“And there wasn’t any beginning to things, 
nor any end of them ; and whin I struck the snow 
and cut down the core of it like a cat through a 
glass, I was willin’ to say with the Prophet of 
Ireland — ” 

“Are you going to pass the liniment. Pretty 
Pierre?” 

It was Jo Gordineer said that. 

What the Prophet of Israel did say — Israel 
and Ireland were identical to Shon — was never 
told. 

Shon’s bubbling sarcasm was full-stopped by 
the beneficent savor that, rising now from the 
hands of the four, silenced all irrelevant speech. 
It was a function of importance. €t was not 
simply necessary to say How ! or Here^s ref- 
ormation f or I look toward you ! As if by a 
common instinct. The Honorable, Jo Gordineer, 
and Pretty Pierre, turned toward Shon and lifted 
their glasses. Jo Gordineer was going to say : 
“Here’s a safe foot in the stirrups to you,” but 
he changed his mind and drank in silence. 

Shon’s eye had been blazing with fun, but it 
took on, all at once, a misty twinkle. ISTone of 
them had quite bargained for this. The feeling 
had come like a wave of soft lightning, and had 
passed through them. Did it come from the 
Irishman himself? Was it his own nature act- 
ing through those who called him “partner”? 


168 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Pretty Pierre got up and kicked savagely at 
the wood in the big fireplace. He ostentatiously 
and needlessly put another log of Norfolk-pine 
upon the fire. 

The Honorable gayly suggested a song. 

“Sing us "" Avec les Braves Sauvages,^ 
Pierre,” said Jo Gordineer. 

But Pierre waved his fingers toward Shon: 
“Shon, his song — he did not finish — on the gla- 
cier. It is good we hear all. Eh?” 

And so Shon sang : 

“Oh, it’s down the long side of Farcalladen Rise.” 

The sleeper on the pine branches stirred ner- 
vously, as if the song were coming through a 
dream to him. At the third verse he started 
up, and an eager sunburned face peered from the 
half-darkness at the singer. The Honorable was 
sitting in the shadow, with his back to the new 
actor in the scene. 

“For it’s rest when the gallop is over, my men ! 

And it’s here’s to the lads that have ridden their last ! 

And it’s here’s — ” 

Shon paused. One of those strange lapses of 
memory came to him that come at times to most 
of us concerning familiar things. He could get 
no further than he did on the mountain-side. He 
passed his hand over his forehead, stupidly : — 
“Saints forgive me! but it’s gone from me, and 
sorra the one can I get it ; me that had it by 
heart, and the lad that wrote it far away. Death 
in the world, but ITl try it again! 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 


169 


“For it’s rest when the gallop is over, my men ! 

And it’s here’s to the lads that have ridden their last ! 
And it’s here’s — ” 


Again he paused. 

But from the half-darkness there came a voice, 
a clear baritone : 

“And here’s to the lasses we leave in the glen, 

With a smile for the future, a sigh for the past.” 

At the last words the figure strode down into 
the firelight. 

“Shon, old friend, don’t you know me?” 

Shon had started to his feet at the first note of 
the voice, and stood as if spellbound. 

There was no shaking of hands. Both men 
held each other hard by the shoulders, and stood 
so for a moment looking steadily eye to eye. 

Then Shon said : 

“Duke Lawless, there’s parallels of latitude 
and parallels of longitude, but who knows the 
tomb of ould Brian Borhoime?” 

Which was his way of saying, “How come 
you here?” 

Duke Lawless turned to the others before he 
replied. His eyes fell on The Honorable. With 
a start and a step backward he said, a peculiar 
angry dr3mess in his voice: 

“Just Trafford!” 

“Yes,” replied The Honorable, smiling, “I 
have found you.” 

“Found me! And wh^' have you sought me? 
Me, Duke Lawless? I should have thought — ” 


170 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


The Honorable interrupted: “To tell you that 
you are Sir Duke Lawless.” 

“That? You sought me to tell me that 

“I did.” 

“You are sure? And for naught else?” 

“As I live, Duke.” 

The eyes fixed on The Honorable were search- 
ing. Sir Duke hesitated, then held out his hand. 
In a swift but cordial silence it was taken. 
Nothing more could be said then. It is only in 
pla^^s where gentlemen freely discuss family 
affairs before a curious public. Pretty Pierre 
was busy with a decoction. Jo Gordineer was 
his associate. Shon had drawn back, and was 
apparently examining the indentations on his 
gold-pan. 

“Shon, old fellow, come here,” said Sir Duke 
Lawless. 

But Shon had received a shock. “It’s little I 
knew Sir Duke Lawless—” he said. 

“It’s little you needed to know then, or need 
to know now, Shon, my friend. I’m Duke Law- 
less to you here and henceforth, as ever I was 
then, on the wallaby track.” 

And Shon believed him. 

The glasses were ready. 

“I’ll give the toast,” said The Honorable, with 
a gentle gravity. “To Shon McGann and his 
Toboggan Ride?” 

“I’ll drink to the hrst half of it with all my 
heart,” said Sir Duke. “It’s all I know 
about.” 

“Amen to that divorce!” rejoined Shon. 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 


171 


“But were it not for the Toboggan Ride we 
shouldn’t have stopped here,” said The Hon- 
orable; “and where would this meeting have 
been?” 

“That alters the case,” Sir Duke remarked. 

“I take back the ‘Amen,’ ” said Shon. 


II. 

W HATEVER claims Shon had upon the com- 
panionship of Sir Duke Lawless, he knew there 
v/ere other claims that were more pressing. After 
the toast was finished, with an emphasized as- 
sumption of weariness, and a hint of a long yarn 
on the morrow, he picked up his blanket and 
started for the room where all were to sleep. The 
real reason of this early departure w’as clear to 
Pretty Pierre at once, and in due time it dawned 
upon Jo Gordineer. 

The two Englishmen, left alone, sat for a few 
moments silent and smoking hard. Then The 
Honorable rose, got his knapsack, and took out 
a small number of papers, which he handed to 
Sir Duke, saying, “By slow postal service to Sir 
Duke Lawless. Residence, somewhere on one 
of five continents.” 

An envelope bearing a woman’s writing was 
the first thing that met Sir Duke’s eye. He 
stared, took it out, turned it over, looked curi- 
ously at The Honorable for a moment, and then 
began to break the seal. 


172 


PIEKRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Wait, Duke. Do not read that. We have 
something to say to each other first.’* 

Sir Duke laid the letter down. 

“You have some explanation to make,” he 
said. 

“It was so long ago; mightn’t it be better to 
go over the story again?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“Then it is best you should tell it. I am on 
my defense, you know.” 

Sir Duke leaned back, and a frown gathered 
on his forehead. Strikingly out of place on his 
fresh face it seemed. Looking quickly from the 
fire to the face of The Honorable and back again 
earnestly, as if the full force of what was re- 
quired came to him, he said: “We shall get the 
perspective better if we put the tale in the third 
person. Duke Lawless was the heir to the title 
and estates of Trafford Court. Hext in succes- 
sion to him was Just Trafford, his cousin. Law- 
less had an income sufficient for a man of mod- 
erate tastes. Trafford had not quite that, but 
he had his profession of the law. At college 
they had been fast friends, but afterward had 
drifted apart, through no cause save difference 
of pursuits and circumstances. Friends they 
still were, and likely to be so always. One sum- 
mer, when on a visit to his uncle. Admiral Sir 
Clavel Lawless, at Trafford Court, where a party 
of people had been invited for a month, Duke 
Lawless fell in love with Miss Emily Dorset. 
She did him the honor to prefer him to any other 
man — at least, he thought so. Her income, how- 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 


173 


ever, was limited like his own. The engage- 
ment was not announced ; for Lawless wished to 
make a home before he took a wife. He inclined 
to ranching in Canada, or a planter’s life in 
Queensland, The eight or ten thousand pounds 
necessary was not, however, easy to get for the 
start, and he hadn’t the least notion of discount- 
ing the future, by asking the admiral’s help. 
Besides, he knew his uncle did not wish him to 
marry unless he married a woman plus a for- 
tune. While things were in this uncertain state, 
Just Trafford arrived on a visit to Trafford 
Court. The meeting of the old friends was cor- 
dial. Immediately on Trafford ’s arrival, how- 
ever, the current of events changed. Things 
occurred which brought disaster. It was notice- 
able that Miss Emily Dorset began to see a deal 
more of Admiral Lawless and Just Trafford, and 
a deal less of the younger Lawless. One day 
Duke Lawless came back to the house unex- 
pectedly, his horse having knocked up on the 
road. On entering the library he saw what 
turned the course of his life.” 

Sir Duke here paused, sighed, shook the ashes 
out of his pipe with a grave and expressive anx- 
iety which did not properly belong to the action, 
and remained for a moment, both arms on his 
knees, silent, and looking at the fire. Then he 
continued : 

“Just Trafford sat beside Emily Dorset in an 
attitude of — say, affectionate consideration. She 
had been weeping, and her whole manner sug- 
gested very touching confidences. They both 


174 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


rose on the entrance of Lawless; but neither 
sought to say a word. What could they say? 
Lawless apologized, took a book from the table 
which he had not come for, and left.” 

Again Sir Duke paused. 

“The book was an illustrated ‘Much Ado 
About Nothing,’ ” said The Honorable. 

“A few hours after. Lawless had an interview 
with Emily Dorset. He demanded, with a good 
deal of feeling, perhaps — for he was romantic 
enough to love the girl — an explanation. He 
would have asked it of Trafford first if he had 
seen him. She said Lawless should trust her ; 
that she had no explanation at that moment to 
give. If he waited — but Lawless asked her if 
she cared for him at all, if she wished or in- 
tended to marry him. She replied lightly : ‘Per- 
haps, when you become Sir Duke Lawless.’ 
Then Lawless accused her of heartlessness, and 
of encouraging both his uncle and Just Trafford. 
She amusingly said, ‘Perhaps she had, but it 
really didn’t matter, did it?’ For reply. Law- 
less said her interest in the whole family seemed 
active and impartial. He bade her not vex her- 
self at all about him, and not to wait until he 
became Sir Duke Lawless, but to give preference 
to seniority and begin with the title at once; 
which he has reason since to believe that she did. 
What he said to her he has been sorry for, not 
because he thinks it was undeserved, but be- 
cause he has never been able since to rouse him- 
self to anger on the subject, nor to hate the girl 
and Just Trafford as he ought. Of the dead ho 


SHON m‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 


175 


is silent altogether. He never sought an ex- 
planation from Just Trafford, for he left that 
night for London, and in two days was on his 
way to Australia. The day he left, however, he 
received a note from his banker saying that 
£8,000 had been placed to his credit by Admiral 
Lawless. Feeling the indignity of what he be- 
lieved was the cause of the gift. Lawless neither 
acknowledged it nor used it, not any penny of 
it. Four years have gone since then, and Law- 
less has wandered over two continents, a self- 
created exile. He has learned much that he 
didn’t learn at Oxford ; and not the least of all, 
that the world is not so bad as is claimed for it, 
that it isn’t worth while hating and cherishing 
hate, that evil is half -accidental, half -natural, 
and that hard work in the face of nature is the 
thing to pull a man together and strengthen him 
for his place in the universe. Having burned 
his ships behind him, that is the way Lawless 
feels. And the story is told. ” 

Just Trafford sat looking musingly but im- 
perturbably at Sir Duke for a minute ; then he 
said: 

“That is your interpretation of the story, but 
not the story. Let us turn the medal over now. 
And, first, let Trafford say that he has the per- 
mission of Emily Dorset — ” 

Sir Duke interrupted : 

“Of her who was Emily Dorset.” 

“Of Miss Emily Dorset, to tell what she did 
not tell that day five years ago. After this other 
reading of the tale has been rendered, her letter 


176 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and those documents are there for fuller testimo- 
ny. Just Trafford’s part in the drama begins, of 
course, with the library scene. Now Duke Law- 
less had never known Traffoi’d’s half-brofcher. 
Hall Vincent. Hall was born in India, and had 
lived there most of his life. He was in the In- 
dian Police, and had married a clever, beautiful, 
but impossible kind of girl, against the wishes 
of her parents. The marriage was not a very 
happy one. This was partly owing to the quick 
Lawless and Trafford blood, partly to the wife’s 
willfulness. Hall thought that things might go 
better if he came to England to live. On their 
way from Madras to Colombo he had some 
words with his wife one day about the way she 
arranged her hair, but nothing serious. This 
was shortly after tiffin. That evening they en- 
tered the harbor at Colombo ; and Hall, going to 
his cabin to seek his wife, could not find her; 
but in her stead was her hair, arranged carefully 
in fiowing waves on the pillow, where through 
the voyage her head had lain. That she had 
cut it off and laid it there was plain ; but she 
could not be found, nor was she ever found. The 
large porthole was open ; this was the only clew. 
But we need not go further into that. Hall 
Vincent came home to England. He told his 
brother the story as it has been told to you, and 
then left for South America, a broken-spirited 
man. The wife’s family came on to England 
also. They did not meet Hall Vincent; but one 
day Just Trafford met at a country seat in Devon, 
for the first time, the wife’s sister. She had not 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 177 


known of the relationship between Hall Vincent 
and the Tr affords ; and on a memorable after- 
noon he told her the full story of the married 
life and the final disaster, as Hall had told it to 
him.’’ 

Sir Duke sprang to his feet. 

“You mean, Just, that — ” 

“I mean that Emily Dorset was the sister of 
Hall Vincent’s wife.” 

Sir Duke’s brown fingers clasped and unclasped 
nervously. He was about to speak, but The 
Honorable said : 

“That is only half the story — wait! 

“Emily Dorset would have told Lawless all in 
due time, but women don’t like to be bullied 
ever so little, and that, and the unhappiness of 
the thing, kept her silent in her short interview 
with Lawless. She could not have guessed that 
Lawless would go as he did. How, the secret of 
her diplomacy with the uncle — diplomacy is the 
best word to use — was Duke Lawless’s advance- 
ment. She knew how he had set his heart on 
the ranching or planting life. She would have 
married him without a penny, but she felt his 
pride in that particular, and respected it. So, 
like a clever girl, she determined to make the old 
chap give Lawless a check on his possible future. 
Perhaps, as things progressed, the same old chap 
got an absurd notion in his head about marrying 
her to Just Trafford, but that was meanwhile all 
the better for Lawless. The very day that Em- 
ily Dorset and Just Trafford succeeded in melt- 
ing Admiral Lawless’s heart to the tune of eight 


178 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


thousand, was the day that Duke Lawless 
doubted his friend and challenged the loyalty 
of the girl he loved.” 

Sir Duke’s eyes filled. 

‘‘Great Heaven! Just — ” he said. 

“Be quiet for a little. You see she had taken 
Traiford into her scheme against his will, for he 
was never good at mysteries and theatricals, 
and he saw the danger. But the cause was a 
good one, and he joined the sweet conspiracy, 
with what result these five years bear witness. 
Admiral Lawless has been dead a year and a 
half, his wife a year. For he married out of 
anger with Duke Lawless; but he did not marry 
Emily Dorset, nor did he beget a child.” 

“In Australia I saw a paragraph speaking of 
a visit made by him and Lady Lawless to a 
hospital, and I thought — ” 

“You thought he had married Emily Dor- 
set, and— well, you had better read that letter 
now.” 

Sir Duke’s face was flushing with remorse and 
pain. He drew his hand quickly across his 
eyes. 

“And you’ve given up London, your profes- 
sion, everything, just to hunt for me, to tell me 
this — you who would have profited by my eter- 
nal absence! What a beast and an ass I’ve 
been!” 

“J^Iot at all; only a bit poetical and hasty, 
which is not unnatural in the Lawless blood. I 
should have been wild myself, may be, if I had 


1 


SHON m‘GAN!s’S toboggan RIDE. 179 

been in your position ; only I shouldn’t have left 
England, and I should have taken the papers 
regularly and have asked the other fellow to 
explain. The other fellow didn’t like the little 
conspiracy. Women, however, seem to find thaf 
kind of thing a moral necessity. By the way, I 
v/ish when you go back you’d send me out my 
hunting traps. I’ve made up my mind to — oh, 
quite so — read the letter — I forgot!” 

Sir Duke opened the letter and read it, putting 
it away from him now and then as if it hurt 
him, and taking it up a moment after to con- 
tinue the reading. The Honorable watched 
him. 

At last Sir Duke rose. 

“Just—” 

“Yes? Goon.”. 

“Do you think she would have me' now?” 

“Don’t know. Your outfit is not so beautiful 
as it used to be,” 

“Don’t chaff me.” 

“Don’t be so funereal, then.” 

Under The Honorable’s matter-of-fact air Sir 
Duke’s face began to clear. “Tell me, do you 
think she still cares for me?” 

“Yfeli, I don’t know. She’s rich now — got 
the grandmother’s stocking. Then there’s Ped- 
ley, of the Scots Guards; he has been doing loyal 
service for a couple of years. What does the 
letter say?” 

“It only tells the truth, as you have told it to 
me, but from her standpoint ; not a word that 


180 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 

says anything but beautiful reproach and gen- 
eral kindness. That is all.’’ 

“Quite so. You see it was all four years ago, 
and Pedley — ” 

But The Honorable paused. He had punished 
his friend enough, tie stepped forward and laid 
his hand on Sir Duke’s shoulder. “Duke, you 
want to pick up the threads where they were 
dropped. You dropped them. Ask me noth- 
ing about the ends that Emily Dorset held. I 
conspire no more. But go you and learn your 
fate. If one remembers, why should the other 
forget?” 

Sir Duke’s light heart and eager faith came 
back with a rush. “I’ll start for England at 
once. I’ll know the worst or the best of it before 
three months are out. ” 

The Honorable’s slow placidity turned. 

“Three months. — Yes, you may do it in that 
time. Better go from Victoria to San Francisco 
and then overland. You’ll not forget about my 
hunting traps, and — oh, certainly, Gordineer; 
come in.” 

“Say,” said Gordineer, “I don’t want to dis- 
turb the meeting, but Shon’s in chancery some- 
how ; breathing like a white pine, and thrashing 
about! He’s red-hot with fever.” 

Before he had time to say more. Sir Duke 
seized the candle a,nd entered the room. Shon 
was moving uneasily and suppressing the 
groans that shook him. 

“Shon, old friend, what is it?” 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 181 


‘‘It’s the pain here, Lawless,” laying his hand 
on his chest. 

After a moment Sir Duke said : 

“Pneumonia!” 

From that instant thoughts of himself were 
sunk in the care and thought of the man who in 
the heart of Queensland had been mate and 
friend and brother to him. He did not start for 
England the next day, nor for many a day. 

Pretty Pierre and Jo Gordineer and his party 
carried Sir Duke’s letters over into the Pipi Val- 
ley, from where they could be sent on to the 
coast. Pierre came back in a few days to see 
how Shon was, and expressed his determination 
of staying to help Sir Duke, if need be. 

Shon hovered between life and death. It was 
not alone the pneumonia that racked 'his system 
so ; there was also the shock he had received in 
his flight down the glacier. In his delirium he 
seemed to be always with Lawless : — 

“ ‘For it’s down the long side of Farcalladen 
Eise’ — It’s share and share even, Lawless, and 
ye’ll ate the rest of it, or I’ll lave ye — Did ye 
say ye’d found water — Lawless — water! — Sure 
you’re drinkin’ none yourself — I’ll sing it again 
for you then — ‘And it’s back with the ring of 
the chain and the spur’ — ‘But burn all your 
ships behind you’ — ‘I’ll never go back to Far- 
calladen more’ — God bless you. Lawless!” 

Sir Duke’s fingers had a trick of kindness*, a 
suggestion of comfort, a sense of healing, that 
made his simple remedies do more than natural 


182 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


duty. He was doctor, nurse — sleepless nurse — 
and careful apothecary. And when at last the 
danger was past and he could relax watching, he 
would not go, and he did not go, till they could 
all travel to the Pipi Yalley. 

Ill the blue shadows of the firs they stand as 
we take our leave of one of them. The Honora- 
ble and Sir Duke have had their last words. Sir 
Duke has said he will remember about the hunt- 
ing traps. They understand each other. There 
is sunshine in the face of all — a kind of Indian 
summer sunshine, infused with the sadness of a 
coming winter ; and theirs is the winter of part- 
ing. Yet it is all done easily, undemonstratively. 

“We’ll meet again, Shon,” said Sir Duke, 
“and you’U remember your promise to write to 
me.” 

“I’ll keep my promise, and I hope the news 
that’ll please you best is what you’ll send us 
first from England. And if you should go to 
ould Donegal! — I’ve no words for me thoughts 
at all!” 

“I know them. Don’t try to say them. We’ve 
not had the luck together, all kinds and all 
weathers, for nothing.” 

Sir Duke’s eyes smiled a good-by into the 
smiling eyes of Shon. They were much alike, 
these two, whose stations were so far apart. Yet, 
somewhere, in generations gone, their ancestors 
may have toiled, feasted, or governed, in the 
same social hemisphere ; and here in the moun- 
tains, life was leveled to one degree again. 


SHON M‘GANN’S toboggan RIDE. 183 


Sir Duke looked round. The pines were 
crowding up elate and warm toward the peaks 
of the white silence. The river was brawling 
over a broken pathway of bowlders at their feet ; 
round the edge of a mighty mountain crept a 
mule-train; a far-off glacier glistened harshly in 
the lucid morning, yet not harshly either, but 
with the rugged form of a vast antiquity, from 
which these scarred and grimly austere hills had 
grown. Here Nature was filled with a sense of 
triumphant mastery — the mastery of ageless ex- 
perience. And down the great piles there blew 
a wind of stirring life, of the composure of great 
strength, and touched the four, and the man 
that mounted now was turned to go. A quick 
good-by from him to all ; a God-speed-you from 
The Honorable; a wave of the hand between 
the rider and Shon, and Sir Duke Lawless was 
gone. 

“You had better cook the last of that bear this 
morning, Pierre,” said The Honorable. And 
their life went on. 

***** 5 !^ 

It was eight months after that, sitting in their 
hut after a day’s successful mining. The Hon- 
orable handed Shon a newspaper to read. A 
paragraph was marked. It concerned the mar- 
riage of Miss Emily Dorset and Sir Duke Law- 
less. 

And while Shon read. The Honorable called 
into the tent: 

“Have you any lemons for the whisky, 
Pierre?” 


184 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


A satisfactory reply being returned, The Hon- 
orable proceeded*. “We’ll begin with the bottle 
of Pommery, which I’ve been saving months 
for this.” 

And the royal- flush toast of the evening be- 
longed to Shon. 

“God bless him ! To the day when we see him 
again!” 

And all of them saw that day. 


Pere Champagne, 

‘‘Is it that we stand at the top of the hill and 
the end of the travel has come, Pierre? Why 
don’t you spake?” 

“We stand at the top of the hill, and it is the 
end.” 

“And Lonely Valley is at our feet and White- 
faced Mountain beyond?” 

“One at our feet, and the other beyond, Shon 
McGann.” 

“It’s the sight of my eyes I wish I had in the 
light of the sun this mornin’. Tell me, what 
is’t you see?” 

“I see the trees on the foothills, and all the 
branches shine with frost. There is a path — so 
wide ! — between two groves of pines. On White- 
faced Mountain lies a glacier-field . . . and all is 
still.” . . . 

“The voice of you is far-away-like, Pierre — 
it shivers as a hawk cries. It’s the wind, the 
wind, maybe.” 

“There’s not a breath of life from the hill or 
valley.” 


( 185 ) 


186 . 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Bat 1 feel it in my face.” 

“It is not the breath of life you feel.” 

“Did you not hear voices coming athwart 
the wind? . . . Can you see the people at the 
mines?” 

“I have told you what I see?” 

“You told me of the pine-trees, and the 
glacier, and the snow — ” 

“And that is all.” 

“But in the valley, in the valley, where all the 
miners are!” 

“I cannot see them.” 

“For love of heaven, don’t tell me that the 
dark is failin’ on your eyes, too.” 

“No, Shon, I am not growing blind.” 

“Will you not tell me what gives the ache to 
your words?” 

“I see in the valley — snow . . . snow.” 

“It’s a laugh you have at me in your cheek, 
whin I’d give years of my ill-spent life to 
watch the chimney smoke come curlin’ up 
slow through the sharp air in the valley there 
below.” 

“There is no chimney and there is no smoke 
in all the valley.” 

“Before God, if you’re a man, you’ll put your 
hand on my arm and tell me what trouble quakes 
your speech.” 

“Shon McGann, it is for you to make the sign 
of the Cross . . . there, while I put my hand on 
your shoulder — so!” 

“Your hand is heavy, Pierre.” 


Pi]RE CHAMPAGNE. 


187 


“This is the sight of the eyes that see. Iq the 
valley there is snow; in the snow of all that 
was, there is one poppet-head of the mine that 
was called St. Gabriel . . . upon the poppet-head 
there is the figure of a woman.” 

“Ah!” 

“She does not move — ” 

“She will never move?” 

“She will never move.” 

“The breath o’ my body hurts me. . . . There 
is death in the valley, Pierre?” 

“There is death.” 

“It was an avalanche — that path between the 
pines?” 

“And a great storm after.” 

“Blessed be God that I cannot behold that 
thing this day! . . . And the woman, Pierre, 
the woman aloft?” 

“She went to watch for some one coming, and 
as she watched, the avalanche came — and she 
moves not.” 

“Do we know that woman?” 

“Who can tell?” 

“What was it you whispered soft to yourself, 
then, Pierre?” 

“I whispered no word.” 

“There, don’t you hear it, soft and sighin’? . . 
Nathalie ! ” 

^^Mon Dieu ! It is not of the world.” 

“It’s facin’ the poppet-head where she stands 
I’d be.” 

“Your face is turned toward her.” 

“Where is the sun?” 


188 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“The sun stands still above her head.” 

“With the bitter over, and the avil past, come 
rest for her and all that lie there ! ’ ’ 

“Eh, hien^ the game is done.” 

“If vve stay here we shall die also.” 

“If we go we die, perhaps.” . . . 

“Don’t spake it. AYe will go, and we will 
return when the breath of summer comes from 
the South.” 

“It shall be so.” 

“Hush! Did you not hear — ?” 

“I did not hear. I only see an eagle, and it 
flies toward Whitefaced Mountain.” 

And Shon McGann and Pretty Pierre turned 
back from the end of their quest — from a mighty 
grave behind to a lonely waste before ; and though 
one was snow-blind, and the other knew that on 
him fell the chiefer weight of a great misfortune, 
for he must provide food and fire and be as a 
mother to his comrade — they had courage ; with- 
out which, men are as the standing straw in an 
unreaped field in winter; but having become 
like the hooded pine, that keepeth green in 
frost, and hath the bounding blood in all its 
icy branches. 

And whence they came, and v/htrefore, was 
as thus ; — 

A French Canadian once lived in Lonely Val- 
ley. One day great fortune came to him, be- 
cause it was given him to discover the mine 
St. Gabriel. And he said to the woman who 
loved him: “I will go with mules and much 


PERE CHAMPAGNE. 


189 


gold, that I have hewn and washed and gath- 
ered, to a village in the East where my father 
and my mother are. They are poor, but I will 
make them rich: and then I will return to 
Lonely Valley, and a priest shall come with 
me, and we will dwell here at Whitefaced 
Mountain, where men are men and not chil- 
dren.” And the woman blessed him, and 
prayed for him, and let him go. 

He traveled far through passes of the moun- 
tains, and came at last where new cities lay 
upon the plains, and where men were full of 
evil and of lust of gold. And he was free of 
hand and light of heart ; and at a place called 
Diamond City false friends came about him, 
and gave him champagne wine to drink, and 
struck him down and robbed him, leaving him 
for dead. 

And he was found, and his wounds were all 
healed : all save one, and that was in the brain. 
Men called him mad. 

He wandered through the land, preaching to 
men to drink no wine, and to shun the sight of 
gold. And they laughed at him, and called him 
Pere Champagne. 

But one day much gold was found at a place 
called Reef o’ Angel; and jointly with the gold 
came a plague which scars the face and rots the 
body; and Indians died by hundreds and white 
men by scores; and Pere Champagne, of all who 
were not stricken down, feared nothing, and did 
not flee, but went among the sick and dying, 
and did those deeds which gold cannot buy, and 


190 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


prayed those prayers which were never sold. 
And who can count how high the prayers of the 
feckless go! 

When none was found to bury the dead, he 
gave them place himself beneath the prairie 
earth — consecrated only by the tears of a fool 
— and for extreme unction he had but this: 
“(rod he mercifiil to me, a sinner 

And it happily chanced that Pierre and Shon 
McGann, who traveled westward, came upon 
this desperate battlefield, and saw how Pere 
Champagne dared the elements of scourge and 
death; and they paused and labored with him 
— to save where saving was granted of Heav- 
en, and to bury when the Reaper reaped and 
would not stay his hand. At last the plague 
ceased, because winter stretched its wings out 
swiftly o’er the plains from frigid ranges in 
the West. And then Pere Champagne fell ill 
again. 

And this last great sickness cured his mad- 
ness: and he remembered whence he had come, 
and what befell him at Diamond City so many 
moons ago. And he prayed them, when he knew 
his time was come, that they would go to Lonely 
Valley and tell his story to the woman whom he 
loved; and say that he was going to a strange 
but pleasant Land, and that there he would 
await her coming. And he begged them that 
they would go at once, that she might know, 
and not strain her eyes to blindness, and be 
sick at heart because he came not. And he 
told them her name, and drew the coverlet 


PERE CHAMPAGNE. 


191 


up about his head and seemed to sleep; but 
he waked between the day and dark, and gently 
cried : 

“The snow is heavy on the mountain . . . and 
the valley is below . . . Gardez! mon Pere ! . . . 
Ah, Nathalie!” 

And they buried him between the dark and 
dawn. 

Though winds were fierce, and travel full of 
peril, they kept their word, and passed along 
wide steppes of snow, until they entered passes 
of the mountains, and again into the plains; 
and at last one poudre d?y, when frost was 
shaking like shreds of faintest silver through 
the air, Shon McGann’s sight fled. But he 
would not turn back — a promise to a dying man 
was sacred, and he could follow if he could not 
lead ; and there was still some pemmican, and 
there were martens in the woods, and wander- 
ing deer that good spirits hunted into the way 
of the needy; and Pierre’s finger along the gun 
was sure. 

Pierre did not tell Shon that for many days 
they traveled woods where no sunshine entered ; 
where no trail had ever been , nor foot of man 
had trod: that they had lost their way. Nor 
did he make his comrade know that one night 
he sat and played a game of solitaire to see if 
they would ever reach the place called Lonely 
Valley. Before the cards were dealt, he made 
a sign upon his breast and forehead. Three 
times he played, and three times he counted 
victory; and before three suns had come and 


192 


PIERRE AND PUS PEOPLE. 


gone, the}’ climbed a hill that perched over 
Lonely Valley. And of what they saw and 
their hearts felt we know. 

And when they turned their faces eastward 
they were as men who go to meet a final and a 
conquering enemy; but they had kept their 
honor with the man upon whose grave-tree 
Shon McGann had carved beneath his name 
these words ; 

“A Breather of Aaron.” 

Upon a lonely trail they wandered, the spirits 
of lost travelers hungering in their wake — 
spirits that mumbled in cedar thickets, and 
whimpered down the flumes of snow. And 
Pierre, who knew that evil things are exor- 
cised by mighty conjuring, sang loudly, from 
a throat made thin by forced fasting, a scng 
with which his mother sought to drive away the 
devils of dreams that flaunted on his pillow 
when a child: it was the Song of the Scarlet 
Hunter. And the charm sufficed ; for suddenly 
of a cheerless morning they came upon a trap- 
per’s hut in the wilderness, where their suffer- 
ings ceased, and the sight of Shon’s eyes came 
back. When strength returned also, they jour- 
neyed to an Indian village, where a priest 
labored: and him they besought; and when 
spring came they set forth to Lonely Valley 
again that the woman and the smothered dead 
— if it might chance so — should be put away 
into peaceful graves. But thither coming they 
only saw a gray and churlish river; and the 


PERE CHAMPAGNE. 


193 


poppet-head of the mine of St. Gabriel, and she 
who had knelt thereon, were vanished into soli- 
tudes, where only God’s cohorts have the rights 
of burial. . . . 

But the priest prayed humbly for their ,so 
swiftly-summoned souls. 


The Scarlet Hunter. 


“News out of Egypt!” said the Honorable 
Just Trafford. “If this is true, it gives a pretty 
finish to the season. You think it possible, 
Pierre? It is every man’s talk that there isn’t 
a herd of buffaloes in the whole country ; but 
this — eh?” 

Pierre did not seem disposed to answer. He 
had been watching a man’s face for some time ; 
but his eyes were now idly following the smoke 
of his cigarette as it floated away to the ceiling 
in fading circles. He seemed to take no interest 
in Trafford’s remarks, nor in the tale that Shangi 
the Indian had told them ; though Shangi and 
his tale were both sufficiently uncommon to jus- 
tify attention. 

Shon McGann was more impressionable. His 
eyes swam ; his feet shifted nervousl}^ with en- 
joyment; he glanced frequently at his gun in 
the corner of the hut ; he had watched Trafford’s 
face with some anxiety, and accepted the result 
of the tale with delight. Now his look was oc- 
cupied with Pierre. 

Pierre was a pretty good authority in all mat* 
ters concerniug the prairies and the North. He 
( 194 ) 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


195 


also had an instinct for detecting veracity, hav- 
ing practiced on both sides of the equation. 
Traiford became impatient, and at last the half- 
breed, conscious that he had tried the temper of 
his chief so far as was safe, lifted his eyes, and, 
resting them casually on the Indian, replied; 
“Yes, I know the place. ... No, I have not 
been there, but I was told — ah, it was long ago. 
There is a great valley between hills, the Kim- 
ash Hills, the Hills of the Mighty Men. The 
woods are deep and dark; there is but one trail 
through them, and it is old. On the highest 
hill is a vast mound. In that mound are the 
forefathers of a nation that is gone. Yes, as you 
say, they are dead, and there is none of them 
alive in the valley — which is called the White 
Valley — where the buffalo are. The valley is 
green in summer, and the snow is not deep in 
winter; the noses of the buffalo can find the 
tender grass. The In jin speaks the truth, per- 
haps. But of the number of buffaloes, one must 
see. The eye of the red man multiplies.” 

Trafford looked at Pierre closely, “You seem 
to know the place very well. It is a long way 
north where— ah yes, you said you had never 
been there; you were told. Who told you?” 

The half-breed raised his eyebrows slightly as 
he replied: “I can remember a longtime, and 
my mother, she spoke much and sang many 
songs at the camp fires. ’ ’ Then he puffed his 
cigarette so that the smoke clouded his face for 
a moment, and went on— “I think there may be 
buffaloes.” 


196 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“It’s along the barrel of me gun I wish I was 
lookin’ at thim now,” said McGann. 

“Eh, you will go?” inquired Pierre of Trafford. 

“To have a shot at the only herd of wild buf- 
faloes on the continent! Of course I’ll go. I’d 
go to the North Pole for that. Sport and novelty 
I came here to see; buffalo-hunting I did not 
expect! I’m in luck, that’s all. We’ll start 
to-morrow morning, if we can get ready, and 
Shangi here will lead us; eh, Pierre?” 

The half-breed again was not polite. Instead 
of replying he sang almost below his breath the 
words of a song unfamiliar to his companions, 
though the Indian’s eyes showed a flash of un- 
derstanding. These were the words : 

“They ride away with a waking wind — away, «way ! 

With laughing lip and with jocund mind at break of 
day. 

A rattle of hoofs and a snatch of song — they ride, they 
ride ! 

The plains are wide and the path is long— so long, so 
wide !” 

Just Trafford appeared read}^-^ deal with this 
insolence, for the half-breed was after all a ser- 
vant of his, a paid retainer. He waited, how- 
ever. Shon saw the difficulty, and at once vol- 
unteered a reply. 

“It’s aisy enough to get away in the mornin’, 
but it’s a question how far we’ll be able to go 
with the horses. The year is late ; but there’s 
dogsbeyand, I suppose, and bedad, there y’are!” 

The Indian spoke slowly : “It is far off. There 
is no color yet in the leaf of the larch. The river- 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


197 


hen still swims northward. It is good that we 
go. There is much buffalo in the White Valley. ” 

Again Trafford looked toward his follower, 
and again the half-breed, as if he were making 
an effort to remember, sang abstractedly : 

“They follow, they follow a lonely trail, by day, by 
night, 

By distant sun, and by fire-fly pale, and northern light. 

The ride to the Hills of the Mighty Men, so swift they 
go! 

Where buffalo feed in the wilding glen in sun and 
snow.” 

“Pierre!” said Trafford sharply, “I want an 
answer to my question.” 

I was thinking . . . well, we 
can ride until the deep snows come, then we can 
v/alk ; and Shangi, he can get the dogs, maybe, 
one team of dogs.” 

“But,” was the reply, “one team of dogs will 
not be enough. We’ll bring meat and hides, 
you know, as well as pemmican. We won’t 
cache any carcasses up there. What would be 
the use? We shall have to be back in the Pipi 
Valley by the springtime.” 

^‘Well,” said the half-breed with a cold de- 
cision, “one team of dogs will be enough; and 
we will not cache^ and we shall be back in the 
Pipi Valley before the spring, perhaps” — but 
this last word was spoken under his breath. 

And now the Indian spoke, with his deep voice 
and dignified manner : “Brothers, it is as I have 
said — the trail is lonely and the woods are deep 
and dark. Since the time when the world was 


198 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


young, no white man hath been there save one, 
and behold sickness fell on him ; the grave is his 
end. It is a pleasant land, for the gods have 
blessed it to the Indian forever. No heathen 
shall possess it. But you shall see the White 
Valley and the buffalo. Shangi will lead, be- 
cause you have been merciful to him, and have 
given him to sleep in your wigwam, and to eat 
of your wild meat. There are dogs in the for- 
est. I have spoken.” 

Trafford was impressed, and annoyed too. He 
thought too much sentiment was being squan- 
dered on a very practical and sportive thing. He 
disliked functions; speech-making was to him a 
matter for prayer and fasting. The Indian’s 
address was therefore more or less gratuitous, 
and he hastened to remark: “Thank you, Shan- 
gi; that’s very good, and you’ve put it poeti- 
cally. You’ve turned a shooting-excursion into 
a mediaeval romance. But we’ll get down to 
business now, if you please, and make the ro- 
mance a fact, beautiful enough to send to the 
Times or the New York Sun. Let’s see, how 
would they put it in the Sun ? — ‘Extraordinary 
Discovery — Herd of buffaloes found in the far 
North by an Englishman and his Eranco-Irish 
Party— Sport for the gods— Exodus of brides to 
White Valley!’ — and so on, screeching to the 
end.” 

Shon laughed heartily. “The fun of the world 
is in the thing,” he said; “and a day it would 
be for a notch on a stick and a rasp of gin in the 
throat. And if I get the sight of me eye on a 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


199 


buffalo-ruck, it’s down on me knees I’ll go, and 
not for prayin’ aither! And here’s both hands 
up for a start in the mornin’ !” 

Long before noon next day they were well on 
their way. Trafford could not understand why 
Pierre was so reserved, and, when speaking, so 
ironical. It was noticeable that the half-breed 
watched the Indian closely, that he always rode 
behind him, that he never drank out of the same 
cup. The leader set this down to the natural 
uncertainty of Pierre’s disposition. He had 
grown to like Pierre, as the latter had come in 
course to respect him. Each was a man of value 
after his kind. Each also had recognized in the 
other qualities of force and knowledge having 
their generation in experiences which had be- 
come individuality, subterranean and acute, 
under a cold surface. It was the mutual recog- 
nition of these equivalents that led the two men 
to mutual trust, only occasionally disturbed, as 
has been shown ; though one was regarded as 
the most fastidious man of his set in London, 
the fairest minded of friends, the most comfort- 
able of companions ; while the other was an out- 
law, a half heathen, a lover of but one thing in 
this world — the joyous god of Chance. Pierre , 
was essentially a gamester. He would have ex- 
tracted satisfaction out of a death sentence which 
was contingent on the trumping of an ace. His 
only honor was the honor of the game. 

Mow, with all the swelling prairie sloping to 
the clear horizon, and the breath of a large life 
in their nostrils, these two men were caught up 


200 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


suddenly, as it were, by the throbbing soul of 
the North, so that the subterranean life in them 
awoke and startled them. Trafford conceived 
that tobacco was the charm with which to exor- 
cise, the spirits of the past. Pierre let the game 
of sensations go on, knowing that they pay them- 
selves out in time. His scheme was the wiser. 
The other found that fast riding and smoiring 
were not sufficient. He became surrounded by 
the ghosts of yesterday; and at length he gave 
up striving with them, and let them storm upon 
him, until a line of pain cut deeply across his 
forehead, and bitterly and unconsciously he cried 
aloud — “Hester, ah, Hester!^’ 

But having spoken, the spell was broken, and 
he was aware of the beat of hoofs beside him, 
and Shangi the Indian looking at him with a 
half smile. Something in the look thrilled him ; 
it was fantastic, masterful. He wondered that 
he had not noticed this singular influence be- 
fore. After all, he was only a savage with 
cleaner buckskin than his race usually wore. 
Yet that glow, that power in the face ! — was he 
Piegan, Blackfoot, Cree, Blood? Whatever he 
was, this man had heard the words which broke 
so painfully from him. 

He saw the Indian frame her name upon his 
lips, and then came the words, “Hester — Hester 
Orval!” 

He turned sternly, and said, “Who are you? 
What do you know of Hester Orval?’’ 

The Indian shook his head gravely, and re- 
plied, “You spoke her name, my brother.” 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


201 


“T spoke, one word of her name. You have 
spoken two. ’ ’ 

“One does not know what one speaks. There 
are words which are as sounds, and words which 
are as feelings. Those come to the brain through 
the ear; these to the soul through sign, which is 
more than sound. The Indian hath knowledge, 
even as the white man; and because his heart 
is open, the trees whisper to him ; he reads the 
language of the grass and the wind, and is 
taught by the song of the bird, the screech of 
the hawk, the bark of the fox. And so ha comes 
to know the heart of the man who hath sickness, 
and calls upon some one, even though it be a 
weak woman, to cure his sickness; who is 
bowed low as beside a grave, and would stand 
upright. Are not my words wise? ■ As the 
thoughts of a child that dreams, as the face of 
the blind, the eye of the beast, or the anxious 
hand of the poor — are they not simple, and to be 
understood?” 

Just Trafford made no reply. But behind, 
Pierre was singing in the plaintive measure of 
a chant : 

“A hunter rideth the herd abreast, 

The Scarlet Hunter from out of the West, 

Whose arrows with points of flame are drest, 

Who loveth the beast of the field the best, 

The child and the young bird out of the nest— 

They ride to the hunt no more— no more !” 

They traveled beyond all bounds of civiliza- 
tion ; beyond the northernmost Indian villages, 
until the features of the landscape became more 


202 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


rugged and solemn, and at last they paused at a 
place which the Indian called Misty Mountain, 
and where, disappearing for an hour, he returned 
with a team of Eskimo dogs, keen, quick-tem- 
pered, and enduring. They had all now recov- 
ered from the disturbing sentiments of the first 
portion of the journey ; life was at full tide ; the 
spirit of the hunter was on them. 

At length one night they camped in a vast 
pine grove wrapped in coverlets of snow and 
silent as death. Here again Pierre became 
moody and alert and took no part in the careless 
chat at the camp-fire led by Shon McGann. The 
man brooded and looked mysterious. Mystery 
was not pleasing to Trafford. He had his own 
secrets, but in the ordinary affairs of life he pre- 
ferred simplicity. In one of the silences that 
befell between Shon’s attempts to give hilarity 
to the occasion, there came a rumbling far-off 
sound, a sound that increased in volume till 
the earth beneath them responded gently to 
the vibration. Trafford looked up inquiringly 
at Pierre, and then at the Indian, who, after a 
moment, said slowly: 

“Above us are the Hills of the Mighty Men, 
beneath us is the White Valley. It is the tramp 
of buffalo that we hear. A storm is coming, 
and they go to shelter in the mountains.” 

The information had come somewhat suddenly, 
and McGann was the first to recover from the 
pleasant shock: 

“It’s divil a wink of sleep I’ll get this night, 
with the thought of them below there ripe for 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


203 


slaughter, and the tumble of fight in their 
beards.” 

Pierre, with a meaning glance from his half- 
closed eyes, added : 

“But it is the old saying of the prairies that 
you do not shout dinner till you have your 
knife in the loaf. Your knife is not yet in the 
loaf, Shon McGann.” 

The boom of the tramping ceased, and now 
there was a stirring in the snow-clad tree-tops, 
and a sound as if all the birds of the North were 
flying overhead. The weather began to moan 
and the boles of the pines to quake. And then 
there came war — a trouble out of the north — a 
wave of the breath of God to show inconsequent 
man that he who seeks to live by slaughter hath 
slaughter for his master. 

They hung over the fire while the forest cracked 
round them, and the flame smarted with the fly- 
ing snow. And now the trees, as if the elements 
were closing in on them, began to break close by, 
and one plunged forward toward them. Trafford, 
to avoid its stroke, stepped quickly aside right 
into the line of another which he did not see. 
Pierre sprang forward and swung him clear, but 
was himself struck senseless by an outreaching 
branch. 

As if satisfied with this* achievement, the 
storm began to subside. When Pierre recovered 
consciousness Trafford clasped his hand and 
said : 

“You’ve a sharp eye, a quick thought, and 
a deft arm, comrade.” 


204 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Ah, it was in the game. It is good play to 
assist your partner,” the half-hreed replied sen- 
tentiously. 

Through all, the Indian had remained stoical. 
But McGann, who swore by Trafford — as he had 
once sworn by another of the Trafford race — had 
his heart on his lips, and said ; 

“There’s a swate little cherub that sits up aloft, 

Who cares for the soul of poor Jack !” 

It was long after midnight ere they settled 
down again, with the wreck of the forest round 
them. Only the Indian slept; the others were 
alert and restless. They were up at daybreak, 
and on their way before sunrise, filled with de- 
sire for prey. They had not traveled far before 
they emerged upon a plateau. Around them 
were the Hills of the Mighty Men — austere, 
majestic ; at their feet was a vast valley on 
which the light newly-fallen snow had not hid- 
den all the grass. Lonely and lofty, it was a 
world waiting chastely to be peopled ! And now 
it was peopled, for there - came from a cleft of 
the hills an army of buffaloes lounging slowly 
down the waste, with tossing manes and hoofs 
stirring the snow into a feathery scud. 

The eyes of Trafford and McGann swam; 
Pierre’s face was troubled, and strangely enough 
he made the sign of the cross. 

At that instant Trafford saw smoke issuing 
from a spot on the mountain opposite. He turned 
to the Indian : 

“Some one lives there?” he said. 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


205 


“It is the home of the dead, but life is also 
there.’’ 

“White man, or Indian?” 

But no reply came. The Indian pointed in- 
stead to the buffalo rumbling down the valley. 
Trafford forgot the smoke, forgot everything ex- 
cept that splendid quarry. Shon was excited. 
“Sarpints alive!” he said, “look at the troops of 
thim ! Is it standin’ here we are with our tongues 
in our cheeks, whin there’s bastes to be killed, 
and mate to be got, and the call to war on the 
ground below 1 Clap spurs with your heels, say 
I, and down the side of the turf together and 
give ’em the teeth of our guns!” And the Irish- 
man dashed down the slope. In an instant, all 
followed, or at least Trafford- thought all fol- 
lowed, swinging their guns across their saddles 
to be ready for this excellent foray. But while 
Pierre rode hard, it was at first without the frefc 
of battle in him, and he smiled strangely, for he 
knew that the Indian had disappeared as they 
rode down the slope, though how and why he 
could not tell. There ran through his head tales 
chanted at camp fires when he was not yet in 
stature so high as the loins that bore him. They 
rode hard, and yet they came no nearer to that 
flying herd straining on with white streaming 
breath and the surf of snow rising to their 
quarters. Mile’ upon mile, and yet they could 
not ride these monsters down ! 

And now Pierre was leading. There was a 
kind of fury in his face, and he seemed at last 
to gain on them. But as the herd veered close 


206 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


to a wall of stalwart pines, a horseman issued 
from the trees and joined the cattle. The horse- 
man was in scarlet from head to foot; and with 
his coming the herd went faster, and ever faster, 
until they vanished into the mountain-side; and 
they who pursued drew in their trembling horses 
and stared at each other with wonder in their 
faces. 

“In God’s name what does it mean?” Traf- 
ford cried. 

“Is it a trick of the eye or the hand of the 
devil?” added Shoii. 

“In the name of God we shall know perhaps. 
If it is the hand of the devil it is not good for 
us,” remarked Pierre. 

“Who was the man in scarlet who came from 
the woods?” asked Trafford of the half-breed. 

“Eh, it is strange! There is an old story 
among the Indians ! My mother told many tales 
of the place and sang of it, as I sang to you. 
The legend was this: — In the hills of the North 
which no white man, nor no Injin of this time 
hath seen, the forefathers of the red men sleep ; 
])ut some day they will wake again and go forth 
and possess all the land ; and the buffalo are for 
them when that time shall come, that they may 
have the fruits of the chase, and that it be as it 
was of old, when the cattle were as clouds on 
the horizon. And it was ordained that one of 
these mighty men who had never been van- 
quished in fight, nor done an evil thing, and 
was the greatest of all the chiefs, should live and 
not die, but be as a sentinel, as a lion watching. 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


207 


and preserve the White Valley in peace until his 
brethren waked and came into their own again. 
And him they called the Scarlet Hunter ; and to 
this hour the red men pray to him when they 
lose their way upon the plains, or Death draws 
aside the curtains of the wigwam to call them 
forth.” 

“Repeat the verses you sang, Pierre,” said 
Trafford. 

The half-breed did so. When he came to the 
words, “Who loveth the beast of the field the 
best,” the Englishman looked round. “Where 
is Shangi?” he said. 

McGann shook his head in astonishment and 
negation. Pierre explained : 

“On the mountain-side where we fide down 
he is not seen — he vanished . . . mon Dieii^ 
look!” 

On the slope of the mountain stood the Scarlet 
Hunter with drawn bow. From it an arrow 
flew over their heads with a sorrowful twang^ 
and fell where the smoke rose among the pines; 
then the mystic figure disappeared. 

McGann shuddered, and drew him_self together. 

“It is the place of spirits,” he said; “and it’s 
little I like it, God knows; but I’ll follow that 
Scarlet Hunter, or red devil, or whatever he is, 
till I drop, if The Honorable gives the word. 
For flesh and blood I’m not afraid of; and the 
other we come to, whether we will or not, one 
day.” 

But Trafford said : 


208 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


‘^No, we’ll let it stand where it is for the pres- 
ent. Something has played our eyes false, or 
we’re brought here to do work different from 
buffalo-hunting. Where that arrow fell among 
the smoke we must go first. Then, as I read the 
riddle, we travel back the way we came. There 
are points in connection with the Pipi Valley 
superior to the Hills of the Mighty Men.” 

They rode away across the glade, and through 
a grove of pines upon a hill, till they stood be- 
fore a log hut, with parchment windows. 

Trafford knocked, but there was no response. 
He opened the door and entered. He saw a 
figure rise painfully from a couch in a corner — 
the figure of a woman young and beautiful, but 
wan and worn. She seemed dazed and inert 
with suffering, and spoke mournfully : 

‘Ht is too late. Not you, nor any of your race, 
nor anything on earth can save him. He is 
dead — dead now.” 

At the first sound of her voice Trafford started. 
He drew near to her, as pale as she was, and 
wonder and pity were in his face. “Hester,” 
he said, “Hester Orval!” 

She stared at him like one that had been 
awakened from an evil dream, then tottered to- 
ward him with the cry — 

“Just, Just, have you come to save me? O, 
Just!” 

His distress was sad to see, for it was held in 
deep repression; but he said calmly and with 
protecting gentleness: 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


209 


“Yes, I have come to save you. Hester, 
how is it you are here in this strange place? — 
you ! ’ ’ 

She sobbed so that at first she could not an- 
swer; but at last s*he cried: “O, Just, he is 
dead ... in there, in there ! . . . Last night, 
it was last night; and he prayed that I might 
go with him. But I could not die unforgiven 
— and I was right, for you have come out of the 
world to help me, and to save me.’^ 

“Yes, to help you and to save you — if I can,” 
he added in a whisper to himself, for he was full 
of foreboding. He was of the earth, earthy, and 
things that had chanced to him this day were 
beyond the natural and healthy movements of 
his mind. He had gone forth to slay, and had 
been foiled by shadows ; he had come with a 
tragic, if beautiful memory haunting him, and 
that memory had clothed itself in flesh and stood 
before him, pitiful, solitary — a woman. He had 
scorned all legend and superstition, and here 
both were made manifest to him. He had 
thought of this woman as one who was of this 
world no more, and here she mourned before 
him and bade him go and look upon her dead, 
upbn the man who had wronged him, into whom, 
as he once declared, the soul of a cur had entered 
— and now what could he say? He had carried 
in his heart the infinite something that is to men 
the utmost fullness of life, which, losing, they 
must carry lead upon their shoulders where they 
thought the gods had given pinions. 

McGann and Pierre were nervous. This con- 


210 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


junction of unusual things was easier to the in- 
telligences of the dead than the quick. The 
outer air was perhaps less charged with the un- 
natural, and with a glance toward the room 
where death was quartered, thej^ left the hut. 

Trafford was alone with the woman through 
whom his life had been turned awry. He looked 
at her searchingly ; and as he looked the mere 
man in him asserted itself for a moment. She 
was dressed in coarse garments; it struck him 
that her grief had a touch of commonness about 
it; there was something imperfect in the dra- 
matic setting. His recent experiences had had 
a kind of grandeur about them ; it was not thus 
that he had remembered her in the hour when he 
had called upon her in the plains, and the Indian 
had heard his cry. He felt and was ashamed in 
feeling, that there was a grim humor in the sit- 
uation. The fantastic, the melodramatic, the 
emotional, were huddled here in too marked a 
prominence; it all seemed, for an instant, like 
the tale of a woman’s first novel. But immedi- 
p.tely again there was roused in him the latent 
force of loyalty to himself and therefore to her ; 
the story of her past, so far as he knew it, flashed 
before him, and his eyes grew hot. 

He remembered the time he had last seen her 
in an English country-house among a gay party 
in which royalty smiled, and the subject was 
content beneath the smile. But there was one 
rebellious subject and her name was Hester 
Orval. She was a willful girl who had lived 
life selfishly within the lines of that decorous yet 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


211 


pleasant convention to which she was born. She 
was beautiful — she knew that, and royalty had 
graciously admitted it. She was warm-thoughted 
and possessed the fatal strain of the artistic tem- 
perament. She was not sure that she had a 
heart; and many others, not of her sex, after 
varying and enthusiastic study of the matter, 
were not more confident than she. But it had 
come at last that she had listened with pensive 
pleasure to Trafford’s tale of love; and because 
to be worshiped by a man high in all men’s and 
in most women’s esteem, ministered delicately 
to her sweet egotism, and because she was proud 
of him, she gave him her hand in promise, and 
her cheek in privilege, but denied him — though 
he knew this not — her heart and the service of 
her life. But he was content to wait patiently 
for that service, and he wholly trusted her, for 
there was in him some fine spirit of the antique 
world. 

There had come to Falkenstowe, this country- 
house and her father’s home, a man who bore a 
knightly name, but who had no knightly heart ; 
and he told Ulysses’ tales, and covered a haz- 
ardous and cloudy past with that fascinating 
color which makes evil appear to be good, so 
that he roused in her the pulse of art, which she 
believed was soul and life, and her allegiance 
swerved. And when her mother pleaded with 
her, and when her father said stern things, and 
even royalty, with uncommon use, rebuked her 
gently, her heart grew hard ; and almost on the 
eve of her wedding-day she fled with her lover, 


212 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and married him, and together they sailed away 
over the seas. 

The world was shocked and clamorous for a 
matter of nine days, and then it forgot this fool- 
ish and awkward circumstance; but Just Traf- 
ford never forgot it. He remembered all vividly 
until the hour, a year later, when London jour- 
nals announced that Hester Orval and her hus- 
band had gone down with a vessel wrecked upon 
the Alaskan and Canadian coast. And there 
new regret began, and his knowledge of her 
ended. 

But she and her husband had not been 
drowned ; with a sailor they had reached the 
shore in safety. They had traveled inland from 
the coast through the great mountains by un- 
known paths, and as they traveled, the sailor 
died ; and they came at last through innumera- 
ble hardships to the Kimash Hills, the Hills of 
the Mighty Men, and there they stayed. It was 
not an evil land; it had neither deadly cold in 
winter nor wanton heat in summer. But they 
never saw a human face, and everything was 
lonely and spectral. For a time they strove to 
go eastward or southward, but the mountains 
were impassable, and in the north and west there 
v/as no hope. Though the buffalo swept by them 
in the valley they could not slay them, and they 
lived on forest fruits until in time the man sick- 
ened. The woman nursed him faithfully, but 
still he failed ; and when she could go forth no 
more for food, some unseen dweller of the woods 
brought buffalo meat, and prairie fowl, and 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


213 


water from the spring, and laid them beside 
her door. 

She had seen the mounds upon the hill, the 
wide couches of the sleepers, and she remem- 
bered the things done in the days when God 
seemed nearer to the sons of men than now ; and 
she said that a spirit had done this thing, and 
trembled and was thankful. But the man weak- 
ened and knew that he should die; and one 
night when the pain was sharp upon him he 
prayed bitterly that he might pass, or that help 
might come to snatch him from the grave. And 
as they sobbed together, a form entered at the 
door — a form clothed in scarlet — and he bade 
them tell the tale of their lives as they would 
some time tell it unto Heaven. And when the 
tale was told he said that succor should come to 
them from the south by the hand of the Scarlet 
Hunter, that the nation sleeping there should no 
more be disturbed by their -moaning. And then 
he had gone forth, and with his going there was 
a storm such as that in which the man had died, 
the storm that had assailed the hunters in the 
forest yesterday. 

This was the second part of Hester Orval’s 
life as she told it to Just Trafford. And he, 
looking into her eyes, knew that she had suffered, 
and that she had sounded her husband’s un- 
v/orthiness. Then he turned from her and went 
into the room where the dead man lay. And 
there all hardness passed from him, and he 
understood that in the great going forth man 
reckons to the full with the deeds done in that 


214 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


brief pilgrimage called life; and that in the bit- 
ter journey which this one took across the dread 
spaces between Here and There, he had repented 
of his sins, because they, and they only, went 
with him in mocking company; the good hav- 
ing gone first to plead where evil is a debtor and 
hath a prison. And the woman came and stood 
beside Traff ord, and whispered : 

“At first — and at the last — he was kind.” 

But he urged her gently from the room : 

“Go away,” he said; “go away. We cannot 
judge him. Leave me alone with him.” 

They buried him upon the hill-side, far from 
the mounds where the Mighty Men waited for 
their summons to go forth and be the lords of 
the North again. At night they buried him 
when the moon was at its full ; and he had the 
fragrant pines for his bed, and the warm dark- 
ness to cover him; and though he is to those 
others resting there* a heathen and an alien, it 
may be that he sleeps peacefully. 

When Traff ord questioned Hester Orval more 
deeply of her life there, the unearthly look quick- 
ened in her eyes, and she said : 

“Oh, nothing, nothing is real here, but suffer- 
ing; perhaps it is all a dream, but it has changed 
me, changed me. To hear the tread of the flying 
herds — to see no being save him, the Scarlet 
Hunter — to hear the voices calling in the 
night! ... Hush! There, do you not hear 
them? It is midnight — listen!” 

He listened, and Pierre and Shon Me Gann 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


315 


looked at each other apprehensively, while Shon’s 
jingers felt hurriedly along the beads of a rosary 
which he did not hold. Yes, they heard it, a 
deep sonorous sound : 

“Is the daybreak come?” 

“It is still the night,” rose the reply as of one 
clear voice. 

And then there floated through the hills more 
softly : 

“We sleep — we sleep ! ’ ’ 

And the sounds echoed through the valley — 
“sleep — sleep!” 

Yet though these things were full of awe, the 
spirit of the place held them there, and the fever 
of the hunter descended on them hotly. In the 
morning they went forth, and rode into the 
White Valley where the buffalo were feeding, 
and sought to steal upon them ; but the shots 
from their guns only awoke the hills, and none 
were slain. And though they rode swiftly, the 
wide surf of snow was ever between them and 
the chase, and their striving availed nothing. 
Day aftel* day they followed that flying column, 
and night after night they heard the sleepers call 
from the hills. And the desire of the thing 
wasted them, and they forgot to eat, and ceased 
to talk among themselves. But one day Shon 
McGann, muttering Aves as he rode, gained on 
the cattle, until once again the Scarlet Hunter 
came forth from a cleft of the mountains, and 
drove the herd forward with swifter feet. But 
the Irishman had learned the power in this thing, 
and had taught Traft’ord, who knev/ not those 


216 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


availing prayers, and with these sacred conjura- 
tions on their lips they gained on the cattle 
length by length, though the Scarlet Hunter 
rode abreast of the thundering horde. Within 
easy range Trafford swung his gun shoulder- . 
ward to fire, but at that instant a cloud of snow 
rose up between him and his quarry so that they 
all were blinded. And when they came into the 
clear sun again the buffalo were gone ; but flam- 
ing arrows from some unseen hunter’s bow came 
singing over their heads toward the south ; and 
they obeyed the sign, and went back to where 
Hester wore her life out with anxiety for them, 
because she knew the hopelessness of their quest. 
Women are nearer to the heart of things. And 
now she begged Trafford to go southward before 
winter froze the plains impassably, and the snow 
made tombs of the valleys. And he gave the 
word to go, and said that he had done wrong — 
for now the spell was falling from him. 

But she, seeing his regret, said: 

“Ah, Just, it could not have been different. 
The passion of it was on you as it was on us ! 
As if to teach us that hunger for happiness is 
robbery, and that the. covetous desire of man is 
not the will of the gods. The herds are for the 
Mighty Men when they awake, not for the stran- 
ger and the Philistine.” 

“You have grown wise, Hester,” he replied. 

“No, I am sick in brain and body; but it may 
be that in such sickness there is wisdom.” 

“xlh,” he said, “it has turned my head, I 
think. Once I laughed at all such fanciful 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


217 


things as these. This Scarlet Hunter — how many 
times have you seen him?” 

“But once.” 

“What were his looks?” 

“A face pale and strong, with noble eyes; and 
ill his voice there was something strange.” 

Trafford thought of Shangi, the Indian — where 
had he gone? He had disappeared as suddenly 
as he had come to their camp in the South. 

As they sat silent in the growing night, the 
door opened and the Scarlet Hunter stood before 
them. 

“There is food,” he said, “on the threshold — 
food for those who go upon a far journey to the 
South in the morning. Unhappj^ are they who 
seek for gold at the rainbow’s foot, v/ho chase 
the fire-fly in the night, who follow the herds in 
the White Valley. Wise are they who anger 
not the gods, and who fly before the rising storm. 
There is a path from the valley for the strangers, 
the path by which they came ; and when the sun 
stares forth again upon the world, the way shall 
be open, and there shall be safety for you until 
your travel ends in the quick world whither you 
go. You were foolish; now you are wise. It 
is time to depart; seek not to return, that we 
may have peace and you safety. When the world 
cometh to her spring again we shall meet.” 
Then he turned and was gone, with Trafford’s 
voice ringing after him — 

“Shangi! Shangi!” 

They ran out swiftly, but he had vanished. In 
the valley where the moonlight fell in icy cold- 


218 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


ness a herd of cattle was moving, and their 
breath rose like the spray from sea-beaten rocks, 
and the sound of their breathing was borne up- 
ward to the watchers. 

At daybreak they rode down into the valley. 
All was still. Not a trace of life remained; not 
a hoof -mark in the snow, nor a bruised blade of 
grass. And when they climbed to the plateau 
and looked back, it seemed to Trafford and his 
companions, as it seemed in after years, that 
this thing had been all a fantasy. But Hester’s 
face was beside them, and it told of strange and 
unsubstantial things. The shadows of the mid- 
dle world were upon her. And yet again when 
they turned at the last there was no token. It 
was a northern valley, with su 1 and snow, and 
cold blue shadows, and the high hills — that was 
all. Then Hester said : 

‘‘0 Just, I do not know if this is life or death 
■ — and yet it must be death, for after death there 
is forgiveness to those who repent, and your face 
is forgiving and kind.” 

And he — for he saw that she needed much 
human help and comfort — gently laid his hand 
on hers and replied : 

“Hester, this is life, a new life for both of us. 
Whatever has been was a dream ; whatever is 
now” — and he folded her hand in his — “is real; 
and there is no such thing as forgiveness to be 
spoken of between us. There shall be happiness 
for us yet, please God!” 

“I want to go to Falkenstowe. Will — will my 
mother forgive me?” 


THE SCARLET HUNTER. 


219 


“Mothers always forgive, Hester, else half the 
world had slain itself in shame.” 

And then she smiled for the first time since he 
had seen her. This was in the shadows of the 
scented pines ; and a new life breathed upon her, 
as it breathed upon them all, and they knew that 
the fever of the White Valley had passed away 
from them forever. 

After many hardships they came in safety to 
the regions of the south country again ; and the 
tale they told, though doubted by the race of 
pale-faces, was believed by the heathen ; because 
there was none among them, but as he cradled 
at his mother’s breasts, and from his youth up, 
had heard the legend of the Scarlet Hunter. 

For the rom nee of that journey, it concerned 
only the man and woman to whom it was as 
wine and meat to the starving. Is not love more 
than legend, and a human heart than all the 
beasts of the field or any joy of slaughter? 


The Stone. 


The Stone hung on a jutting crag of Purple 
Hill. On one side of it, far beneath, lay the 
village, huddled together as if, through being 
close compacted, its handful of humanity should 
not be a mere dust in the balance beside Nature’s 
portentousness. Yet if one stood beside The 
Stone, and looked down, the flimsy wooden 
huts looked like a barrier at the end of a great 
flume. For the hill hollowed and narrowed 
from The Stone to the village, as if giants had 
made this concave path by trundling bowlder®, 
to that point like a funnel where the miners' 
houses now formed a cul-de-sac. On the other 
side of the crag was a valley also ; but it was 
lonely and untenanted; and at one flank of The 
Stone were serried legions of trees. 

The Stone was a mighty and wonderful thing. 
Looked at from the village direct, it had noth- 
ing but the sky for a background. At times, 
also, it appeared to rest on nothing ; and many 
declared that they could see clean between it 
and the oval floor of the crag on which it rested. 
That was generally in the evening, when the 
sun was setting behind it. Then the light 
coiled round its base, between it and its pedes- 
( 220 ) 


THE STONE. 


221 


tal, thus making it appear to hover above the 
bill-point, or, planet-like, to be just settling on 
it. At other times, when the light was per- 
fectly clear and not too strong, and the village 
side of the crag was brighter than the other, 
more accurate relations of The Stone to its 
pedestal could be discovered. Then one would 
say that it balanced, on a tiny base, a toe of 
granite. But if one looked long, especially in 
the summer, when the air throbbed, it evidently 
rocked upon that toe; if steadily, and very long, 
he grew tremulous, perhaps afraid. Once, a 
woman who was about to become a mother 
went mad, because she thought The Stone 
would hurtle down the hill at her great mo- 
ment and destroy her and her child. Indians 
would not live either on the village side of 
The Stone or in the valley beyond. They had 
a legend that, some day, one, whom they called 
The Man Who Sleeps, would rise from his hid- 
den couch in the mountains, and, being angry 
that any dared to cumber his playground, would 
hurl The Stone upon them that dwelt at Purple 
Hill. But white men pay little heed to Indian 
legends. 

At one time or another every person who had 
come to the village visited The Stone. Colossal 
as it was, the real base on which its weight 
rested was actually very small : the view from 
the village had not been all deceitful. It is 
possible, indeed, that at one time it had really 
rocked, and that the rocking had worn for it a 
shallow cup, or socket, in which it poised. The 


222 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


first man who came to Purple Valley prospect- 
ing had often stopped his work and looked at 
The Stone in a half-fear that it would spring 
upon him unawares. And yet he had as often 
laughed at himself for doing so, since, as he 
said, it must have been there hundreds of thou- 
sands of years. Strangers, when they came to 
the village, went to sleep somewhat timidly the 
first night of their stay, and not infrequently 
left their beds to go and look at The Stone, as it 
hung there ominously in the light of the moon; 
or listened toward it if it was dark. When the 
moon rose late, and The Stone chanced to be di- 
rectly in front of it, a black sphere seemed to be 
rolling into the light to blot it out. 

But none who lived in the village looked upon 
The Stone in quite the same fashion as did that 
first man vfho had come to the valley. He had 
seen it through three changing seasons, with no 
human being near him, and only occasionally a 
shy, wandering elk, or a cloud of wild ducks 
whirring down the pass, to share his companion- 
ship with it. Once he had waked in the early 
morning, and, possessed of a strange feeling, 
had gone out to look at The Stone. There, 
perched upon it, was an eagle; and though he 
said to himself that an eagle’s weight was to 
The Stone as a feather upon the world, he kept 
his face turned toward it all day; for all day 
the eagle stayed. He was a man of great stature 
and immense strength. The thews of his limbs 
stood out like soft unbreakable steel. Yet, as if 
to cast derision on his strength and great propor- 


THE STONE. 


223 


tions, God or Fate turned his bread to ashes, 
gave failure into his hands where he hugely 
grasped at fortune, and hung him about with 
misery. He discovered gold, but others gath- 
ered it. It was his daughter that went mad, 
and gave birth to a dead child in fearsome 
thought of The Stone. Once, when he had 
gone over the hills to another mining field, 
and had been prevented from coming back by 
unexpected and heavy snows, his wife was 
taken ill, and died alone of starvation, be- 
cause none in the village remembered of her 
and her needs. Again, one wild night, long 
after, his only son was taken from his bed 
and lynched for a crime that was none of 
his, as was discovered by his murderers next 
day. Then they killed horribly the real crimi- 
nal, and offered the father such satisfaction as 
they could. They said that any one of them 
was ready there to be killed by him; and they 
threw a weapon at his feet. At this he stood 
looking upon them for a moment, his great 
breast heaving, and his e3^es glowering; but 
presently he reached out his arms, and taking 
two of them by the throat, brought their heads 
together heavily, breaking their skulls; and, 
with’ a cry in his throat like a wounded ani- 
mal, left them, and entered the village no 
more. But it became known that he had 
built a rude hut on Purple Hill, and that he 
had been seen standing beside The Stone or 
sitting among the bowlders below it, with his 
face bent upon the village. Those who had 


224 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


come near to him said that he had greatly 
changed; that his hair and beard had grown 
long and strong, and, in effect, that he looked 
like some rugged fragment of an antique 
world. 

The time came when they associated The 
Man with The Stone: they grew to speak of 
him simply as The Man. There was some- 
thing natural and apt in the association. Then 
the}^- avoided these two singular dwellers on the 
height. What had happened to The Man when 
he lived in the village became almost as great 
a legend as the Indian fable concerning The 
Stone. In the minds of the people one seemed 
as old as the other. Women who knew the 
awful disasters which had befallen The Man 
brooded at times most timidly, regarding him 
as they did at first — and even still — The Stone. 
Women who carried life unborn about wdth them 
had a strange dread of both The Stone and The 
Man. Time passed on, and the 'feeling grew 
that The Man’s grief must be a terrible thing, 
since he lived alone with The Stone and God. 
But this did not prevent the men of the village 
from digging gold, drinking liquor, and doing 
many kinds of evil. One day, again, they did 
an unjust and cruel thing. They -took Pierre, 
the gambler, whom they had at first sought to 
vanquish at his own art, and, possessed sud- 
denly of the high duty of citizenship, carried 
him to the edge of a hill and dropped him over, 
thinking thereby to give him a quick death, 
while the vultures would provide him a tomb. 


THE STONE. 


225 


But Pierre was not killed, though to his grave — 
unprepared as yet — he would bear an arm, which 
should never be lifted higher than his shoulder. 
When he waked from the crashing gloom which 
succeeded the fall, he was in the presence of 
a being whose appearance was awesome and 
massive — an outlawed god; whose hair and 
beard were white, whose eye was piercing, 
absorbing, painful, in the long perspective of 
its woe. This being sat with his great hand 
clasped to the side of his head. The beginning 
of his look was the village, and — though the 
vision seemed infinite — the village was the end 
of it, too. Pierre, looking through the door- 
way beside which he lay, drew in his breath 
sharply, for it seemed at first as if The Man 
was an unnatural fancy, and not a thing. Be- 
hind The Man was The Stone, which was not 
more motionless nor more full of age than this 
its comrade. Indeed, The Stone seemed more 
a thing of life as it poised above the hill : The 
Man was sculptured rock. His white hair was 
chiseled on his broad brow, his face was a 
solemn pathos petrified, his lips were curled 
with an iron contempt, an incalculable anger. 

The sun went down, and darkness gathered 
about The Man. Pierre reached out his hand, 
and drank the water and ate the coarse bread 
that had been put near him. He guessed that 
trees or protruding ledges had broken his fall, 
and that he had been rescued and brought here. 
As he lay thinking. The Man entered the door- 
v’ay, stooping much to do so. With flints he 


226 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


lighted a wick which hung from a wooden bowl 
of bear’s oil; then kneeling, held it above his 
head, and looked at Pierre. And Pierre, who 
had never feared any one, shrank from the look 
in The Man’s eyes. But when the other saw 
that Pierre was awake, a distant kindness came 
upon his face, and he nodded gravely; but he 
did not speak. 

Presently a great tremor as of pain shook all 
his limbs, and he set the candle on the ground, 
and with his stalwart hands arranged afresh the 
bandages about Pierre’s injured arm and leg. 
Pierre spoke at last. 

“You are The Man?” he said. 

The other bowed his head. 

“You saved me from those devils in the 
valley?” 

A look of impregnable hardness came into 
The Man’s face, but he pressed Pierre’s hand 
for answer ; and though the pressure was meant 
to be gentle, Pierre winced painfully. The can- 
dle spluttered, and the hut filled with a sickly 
smoke. The Man brought some bear skins and 
covered the sufferer, for, the season being au- 
tumn, the night was cold. Pierre, who had 
thus spent his first sane and conscious hour in 
many days, fell asleep. What time it was when 
he waked he was not sure, but it was to hear a 
metallic click-click come to him through the 
clear air of night. It was a pleasant noise as 
of steel and rock ; the work of some lonely stone- 
cutter of the hills. The sound reached him with 


THE STONE. 


227 


strange, increasing distinctness. W as this Titan 
that had saved him sculpturing some figure from 
the metal hill? Click-click! it vibrated as 
regularly as the keen pulse of a watch. He 
lay and wondered for a long time, but fell 
asleep again; and the steely iteration went on 
in his dreams. 

In the morning The Man came to him, and 
cared for his hurts, and gave him food; but 
still would speak no word. He was gone nearly 
all day in the hills; yet when evening came ho 
sought the place where Pierre had seen him the 
night before, and the same weird scene was re- 
enacted. And again in the night the clicking 
sound went on ; and every night it was renewed. 
Pierre grew stronger, and could, with difficulty, 
stand upon his feet. One night he crept out and 
made his way softly, slowly, toward the sound. 
Pie saw The Man kneeling beside The Stone, 
he saw a hammer rise and fall upon a chisel, 
and the chisel was at the base of The Stone. 
The hammer rose and fell with perfect but 
dreadful precision. Pierre turned and looked 
toward the village below, whose lights were 
burning like a bunch of fire-flies in the gloom. 
Again he looked at The Stone and The Man. 
Then the thing came to him sharply. The Man 
was chiseling away the socket of The Stone, 
bringing it to that point of balance where the 
touch of a finger, the wing of a bird, or the 
whistle of a northwest wind, would send it 
down upon the offending and unsuspecting 
village. 


228 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


The thought held him paralyzed. The Man 
had nursed his revenge long past the thought 
of its probability by the people beneath. He 
had at first sat and watched the village, hated 
and mused dreadfully upon the thing he had de- 
termined to do. Then he had worked a little, 
afterward more, and now, lastly, since he had 
seen what they had done to Pierre, with the 
hot but firm eagerness of an avenging giant. 
Pierre had done some sad deeds in his time, and 
had tasted some sweet revenges, but nothing 
like to this had ever entered his brain. In that 
village were men who — as they thought — had 
cast him to a death fit only for a coward or a 
cur. Well, here was the most exquisite retalia- 
tion. Though his hand should not be in the 
thing, he could still be the cynical and approv- 
ing spectator. 

But yet: had all those people hovering about 
those lights below done harm to him? He thought 
there were a few — and they were women — who 
would not have followed his tumbril to his death 
with cries of execration. The rest would have 
done so — most of them did so — not because he 
was a criminal, but because he was a victim, 
and because human nature as it is thirsts in- 
ordinately at times for blood and sacrifice — a 
living strain of the old barbaric instinct. He 
remembered that most of these people were con- 
cerned in having injured The Man. The few 
good women there had vile husbands; the few 
pardonable men had hateful wives: the village 
of Purple Hill was an ill affair. 


THE STONE. 


229 


He thought: now doubtfully, now savagely, 
now with irony. 

The hammer and steel clicked on. 

He looked at the lights of the village 
again. 

Suddenly there came to his mind the words of 
a great man who sought to save a city manifold 
centuries ago. He was not sure that he wished 
to save this village; but there was a grim, al- 
most grotesque, fitness in the thing that he now 
intended. He spoke out clearly through the 
night : 

“ ‘ Oh, let not the Lord he angry, and I will 
speak yet hut this once : Peradventure ten 
righteous shall he found there. ’ 

The hammer stopped. There was- a silence, 
in which the pines sighed lightly. Then, as 
if speaking was a labor. The Man replied in 
a deep, harsh voice : 

“I will not spare it for ten’s sake.” 

Again there was a silence, in which Pierre 
felt his maimed body bend beneath him; but 
presently the voice said — 

“ Now ! ” 

At this the moon swung from behind a cloud. 
The Man stood behind The Stone. His arm was 
raised to it. There was a moment’s pause — it 
seemed like years to Pierre; a wind came softly 
crying out of the west, the moon hurried into the 
dark, and then a monster sprang from its pedes- 
tal upon Purple Hill, and, with a sound of thun- 
der and an awful speed, raced upon the village 


230 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


below. The bowlders of the hillside crumbled 
after it. 

Aud Pierre saw the lights go out. 

The moon shone out again for an instant, 
and Pierre saw that The Man stood where The 
Stone had been ; but when he reached the place 
The Man was gone. Forever! 


The Ta!! flaster. 

The story has beea so much tossed about in 
the mouths of Indians, and half-breeds, and men 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, that you are 
pretty sure to hear only an apocryphal version 
of the thing as you now travel in the North. 
But Pretty Pierre was at Fort Luke when the 
battle occurred, and before and after he sifted 
the business thoroughly. For he had a philo- 
sophical turn, and this may be said of him, 
that he never lied except to save another from 
danger. In this matter he was cool and impar- 
tial from first to last, and evil as his reputation 
was in many ways there were those who believed 
and trusted him. Himself, as he traveled back 
and forth through the North, had heard of the 
Tall Master. Yet he had never met any one 
who had seen him; for the Master had dwelt, 
it was said, chiefly among the strange tribes of 
the Far-Off Metal River whose faces were al- 
most white, and who held themselves aloof from 
the southern races. The tales lost nothing by 
being retold, even when the historians were the 
men of the H. B. C. ; — Pierre knew what ac- 
complished liars may be found among that 
Company of Adventurers trading in Hudson’s 

( 231 ) 


232 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Bay, and how their art had been none too del- 
icately engrafted by his own people. But he 
was, as became him, open to conviction, espe- 
cially when, journeying to Fort Luke, he heard 
what John Hybar, the Chief Factor — a man of 
uncommon quality — had to say. Hybar had 
once lived long among those Indians of the 
Bright Stone, and had seen many rare things 
among them. He knew their legends of the 
White Valley and the Hills of the Mighty 
Men, and how their distinctive character had 
imposed itself on the whole Indian race of the 
ITorth, so that there was none but believed, even 
though vaguely, in a pleasant land not south, 
but Arcticward; and Pierre himself, with Shon 
McCann and Just Trafford, had once had a 
strange experience in the Kimash Hills. He 
did not share the opinion of Lazenby, the com- 
pany’s clerk at Fort Luke, who said, when the 
matter was talked of before him, that it was all 
hanky-panky— whiok was evidence that he had 
lived in London town, before his anxious rela- 
tives, sending him forth under the delusive flag 
of adventure and wild life, imprisoned him in 
the Arctic regions with the H. B. C. 

Lazenby admired Pierre; said he was good 
stuff, and voted him amusing, with an ingen- 
ious emphasis of heathen oaths; but advised 
him, as only an insolent young scoundrel can, 
to forswear securing, by the seductive game of 
poker or eucher, larger interest on his capital 
than the H. B. C. ; whose record, he insisted, 
should never be rivaled by any single man in 


THE TALL MASTER. 


233 


any single lifetime. Then he incidentally re- 
marked that he would like to empty the Com- 
pany’s cash-box once — only once; — thus reconcil- 
ing the preacher and the sinner, as many another 
has done. Lazenby’s morals were not bad, how- 
ever. He was simply fond of making them 
appear terrible; even when in London he was 
more idle than wicked. He gravely suggested 
at last, as a kind of climax, that he and Pierre 
should go out on the pad together. This was a 
mere stroke of pleasantry on his part, because, 
the most he could loot in that far ISTorth were 
furs and caches of buffalo meat; and a man’s 
capacity and use for them were limited. Even 
Pierre’s especial faculty and art seemed value- 
less so far Poleward; but he had his beat 
throughout the land, and he kept it like a 
perfect patrolman. He had not been at Fort 
Luke for 5^ears, and he would not be there again 
for more years; but it was certain that he would 
go on reappearing till he vanished utterly. At 
the end of the first week of this visit at Fort 
Luke so completely had he conquered the place 
that he had won from the Chief Factor the year’s 
purchases of skins, the stores, and the Fort itself; 
and every stitch of clothing owned by Lazenby : 
so that, if he had insisted on the redemption of 
the debts, the H. B. C. and Lazenby had been 
naked and hungry in the wilderness. But Pierre 
was not a hard creditor. He instantly and 
nonchalantly said that the Fort would be use- 
less to him, and handed it back again with all 
therein, on a most humorously constructed 


234 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


uiaety-nine years’ lease; while Lazenby was 
left in pawn. Yet Lazenby ’s mind was not at 
certain ease; lie had a wholesome respect for 
Pierre’s singularities, and dreaded being sud- 
denly called upon to pay his debt before he could 
get his new clothes made — maybe in the presence 
of Wind Driver, chief of the Golden Dogs, and 
his demure and charming daughter Wine Face, 
who looked upon him with the eye of affection — 
a matter fully, but not ostentatiously, appreci- 
ated by Lazenby. If he could have entirely for- 
gotten a pretty girl in South Kensington, who, 
at her parents’ bidding, turned her shoulder on 
him, he had married Wine Face; and so he told 
Pierre. But the half-breed had only a sardonic 
kind of sympathy for such weakness. 

Things changed at once when Shon McGann 
arrived. He should have come before, accord- 
ing to a promise given Pierre, but there were 
reasons for the delay; and these Shon elaborated 
in his finely picturesque style. He said that he 
had lost his way after he left the Wapiti Woods, 
and should never have found it again, had it 
not been for a strange being who came upon 
him and took him to the camp of the White 
Hand Indians, and cared for him there, and 
sent him safely on his way again to Fort 
Luke. 

“Sorra wan did I ever see like him,” said 
Shon, “with a face that was divil this minute 
and saint the next; pale in the cheek, and black 
in the eye, and grizzled hair flowin’ long at his 
neck and lyin’ like snakes on his shoulders; and 


THE TALL MASTER 


235 


whin his fingers closed on yours, bedad! they 
didn’t seem human at all, for they clamped you 
so cold and strong.” 

“ ‘For they clamped you so cold and strong,’ ” 
replied Pierre, mockingly, yet greatly interested, 
as one could see by the upward range of his eye 
toward Shon. “Well, what more?” 

“Well, squeeze the acid from y’r voice, Pierre; 
for there’s things that better become you; and 
listen to me, for I’ve news for all here at the 
Port, before I’ve done, which’ll open y’r eyes 
with a jerk.” 

‘ ‘With a wonderful jerk, hola ! let us prepare, 
messieurs, to be waked with an Irish jerk!” and 
Pierre pensively trifled with the fringe on Shon’s 
buckskin jacket, which was whisked from his 
fingers with smothered anger. And for a few 
moments he was silent; but the eager looks of 
the Chief Factor and Lazenby encouraged him 
to continue. Besides, it was only Pierre’s way; 
provoking Shon was the piquant sauce of his 
life. 

“Lyin* awake I was,” continued Shon, “in 
the middle of the night, not bein’ able to sleep 
for a pain in a shoulder I’d strained, whin I 
heard a thing that drew me up standin’. It 
was the sound of a child laughin’, so wonderful 
and bright, and at the very door of me tent it 
seemed. Then it faded away till it was only 
a breath, lovely, and idle, and swingin’. I 
wint to the door and looked out. There was 
nothin’ there, av coorse.” 

“And why ‘av coorse’?” rejoined Pierre. The 


236 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPEE. 


Chief Factor was intent on what Shon was say- 
ing, while Lazenby drummed his fingers on the 
table, his nose in the air. 

“Divils, me darlin’, but ye know as well as 
I, that there’s things in the world neither for 
havin’ nor handlin’. And that’s wan of thim, 
says I to meself . . . I wint back and lay down, 
and I heard the voice singin’ now and cornin’ 
nearer and nearer, and growin’ louder and 
louder, and then there came with it a patter 
of feet, till it was as a thousand children were 
dancin’ by me door. I was shy enough. I’ll 
own ; but I pulled aside the curtain of the tent 
to see again : and there was nothin’ beyand for 
the eye. But the singin’ was goin’ past and 
recedin’ as before, till it died away along the 
weaves of prairie grass. I wint back and give 
Gray Nose, my In jin bed-fellow, a lift wid me 
fut. ‘Come out of that,’ says I, ‘and tell me if 
dead or alive I am.’ He got up, and there was 
the noise soft and grand again, but with it now 
the voices of men, the flip of birds’ wings and 
the sighin’ of tree-tops; and behind all that the 
long wash of a sea like none I ever heard. . . . 
‘Well,’ says I to the In jin grinnin’ before me, 
‘what’s that, in the name o’ Moses?’ ‘That,’ 
says he, laughin’ slow in me face, ‘is the Tall 
Master; him that brought you to the camp.’ 
Thin I remimbered all the things that’s been 
said of him, and I knew it was music I’d been 
bearin’ and not children’s voices nor anythin’ 
else at all. 

“ ‘Come with me,’ sa5^s Gray Ncse; and he 


THE TALL MASTER. 


237 


took me to the door of a big tent standin’ alone 
from the rest. ‘Wait a minute,’ says he, and 
he put his hand on the tent curtain ; and at that 
there was a crash, as a million gold hammers 
were failin’ on silver drums. And we both stood 
still; for it seemed an army, with swords wrang- 
lin’ and bridle-chains rattlin’, was marchin’ 
down on us. There was the divil’s own up- 
roar, as a battle was cornin’ on; and a long line 
of spears clashed. But just then there whistled 
through the larrup of sound a clear voice callin’, 
gentle and coaxin’, yet commandin’, too; and 
the spears dropped, and the pounding of horse- 
hoofs ceased, and then the army marched away; 
far away; iver so far away, into — ” 

“Into Heaven!” flippantly interjected La- 
zenby. 

“Into Heaven, say I, and be choked to you! 
for there’s no other place for it; and I’ll stand 
by that till I go there myself, and know the 
truth o’ the thing.” 

Pierre here spoke. 

“Heaven gave you a marvelous trick with 
words, Shon. I sometimes think that Irish- 
men have gifts for only two things — words and 
women. ... Well, what then?” 

Shon was determined not to be irritated. The 
occasion was too big. 

“Well, Gray Hose lifted the curtain and wint 
in. In a minute he comes out. ‘You can go 
in,’ says he. So in I wint, the Injin not cornin’,* 
and there in the middle of the tint stood the Tall 
Master, alone. He had his fiddle to his chin, 


238 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and the bow hoverin’ above it. He looked at 
me for a long time along the thing; then, all at 
once, from one string I heard the child laughin’ 
that pleasant and distant, though the bow seemed 
not to be touchin’. Soon it thinned till it was 
the shadow of a laugh, and I didn’t know whin 
it stopped, he smilin’ down at the fiddle be- 
whiles. Then he said, without lookin’ at me — 
‘It is the spirit of the White Valley and the 
Hills of the Mighty Men; of which all men 
shall know, for the North will come to her 
spring again one day soon, at the remaking of 
the world. They thought the song would never 
be found again, but I have given it a home here.’ 
And he bent and kissed the strings. After, he 
turned sharply as if he’d been spoken to, and 
looked at some one beside him; some one that I 
couldn’t see. A cloud dropped upon his face; 
he caught the fiddle hungrily to his breast, and 
came limpin’ over to me — for there was some- 
thin’ wrong with his fut — and lookin’ down his 
hook-nose at me, says he: ‘I’ve a word for them 
at Fort Luke, where you’re goin’, and you’d bet- 
ter be gone at once; and I’ll put you on your 
way. There’s to be a great battle. The 
White Hands have an ancient feud with the 
Golden Dogs, and they have come from where 
the soft Chinook wind ranges the Peace River, 
to fight until no man of all the Golden Dogs 
be left, or till they themselves be destroyed. 
It is the same north and south,’ he wint 
on; ‘I have seen it all in Italy, in Greece, 
in — ’ but here he stopped and smiled strange- 


THE TALL MASTER. 


239 


ly. After a minute he wint on: ‘The White 
Hands have no quarrel with the English- 
men of the Port, and I would warn them — for 
Englishmen were once kind to me — and warn 
also the Golden Dogs. So come with me at 
once,’ says he. And I did. And he walked 
with me till mornin’, carryin’ the fiddle under 
his arm, but wrapped in a beautiful velvet 
cloth, havin’ on it grand figures like the arms 
of a king or queen. And just at the firsit whisk 
of sun he turned me into a trail and give me 
good-by, sayin’ that maybe he’d follow me soon, 
and, at any rate, he’d be there at the battle. 
Well, divils betide me! I got off the track 
again; and lost a day; but here I am; and 
there’s me story to take or lave as you will.” 

Shon paused and began to fumble with the 
cards on the table before him, looking the while 
at the others. 

The Chief Factor was the first to speak. “I 
don’t doubt but he told you true about the White 
Hands and the Golden Dogs,” he said; “for 
there’s been war and bad blood between them 
beyond the memory of man — at least since the 
time that the Mighty Men lived, from which 
these date their history. But there’s nothing 
to be done to-night; for if we tell old Wind 
Driver, there’ll be no sleeping at the Fort. So 
we’ll let the thing stand.” 

“You believe all this poppy- cock. Chief?” 
said Lazenby to the Factor, but laughing in 
Shon’s face the while. 

The Factor gravely replied : 


240 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“I knew of the Tali Master years ago on the 
Far-Off Metal River; and though I never saw 
him I can believe these things — and more. You 
do not know this world through and through, 
Lazenby; you have much to learn,” 

Pierre said nothing. He took the cards from 
Shon and passed them to and fro in his hand. 
Mechanically he dealt them out, and as mechan- 
ically they took them up and in silence began to 
play. 

The next day there was commotion and excite- 
ment at Fort Liike. The Golden Dogs were 
making preparations for the battle. Pow-wow 
followed pow-wow, and paint and feathers fol- 
lowed all. The H. B. C. people had little to do 
but look to their guns and house everything 
within the walls of the Fort. 

At night, Shon, Pierre, and Lazenby were 
seated about the table in the common-room, the 
cards lying dealt before them, waiting for the 
Factor to come. Presently the door opened and 
the Factor entered, followed by another. Shon 
and Pierre sprang to their feet. 

“The Tall Master,” said Shon, with a kind of 
awe, and then stood still. 

Their towering visitor slowly unloosed some- 
thing he carried very carefully and closely be- 
neath his arm, and laid it on the table, dropping 
his compass-like fingers softly on it. He bowed 
gravely to each, yet the bow seemed grotesque, 
his body was so ungainly. With the eyes of all 
drawn to him absolutely, he spoke in a low so- 
norous tone : 


THE TALL MASTER. 


241 


“I have followed the traveler fast” — his hand 
lifted gently toward Shon — “for there are 
weighty concerns abroad, and I have things to 
say and do before I go again to my people — and 
beyond. ... I have hungered for the face of a 
white man these manj^ years, and his was the 
first I saw;” — again he tossed a long finger to- 
ward the Irishman — “and it brought back many 
things. I remember. . .” He paused, then sat 
down ; and they all did the same. He looked 
at them one by one with distant kindness. “I 
remember,” he continued, and his strangely 
articulated fingers folded about the thing on the 
table beside him, “when” — here the cards caught 
his eye. His face underwent a change. An 
eager fantastic look shot from his eye— “when I 
gambled this away at Lucca” — his hand drew 
the bundle closer to him — “but I won it back 
again — at a price!” he gloomily added, glancing 
sidewise as to some one at his elbow. 

He remained, eyes hanging upon space for a 
moment, then he recollected himself and con- 
tinued: 

“I became wiser; I never risked it again; but 
I loved the game always. I was a gamester 
from the start — the artist is always so when he 
is greatest — like nature herself. And once, years 
after, I played with a mother for her child — and 
mine." And yet once again at Parma with” — 
here he paused, throwing that sharp sidelong 
glance — “with the greatest gamester^ for the 
infinite secret of Art : and I won it ; but I paid 
the price! . . . I should like to play now.” 


242 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


He reached his hand, drew up five cards, and 
ran his eye through them. “PlajM” he said. 
‘‘The hand is good — very good. . . . Once 
when I played with the Princess — but it is no 
matter; and Tuscany is far away ! . . . Play!” 
he repeated. 

Pierre instantly picked up the cards, with an 
air of cool satisfaction. He had either found 
the perfect gamester or the perfect liar. He 
knew the remedy for either. 

The Chief Factor did not move. Shon and 
Lazenby followed Pierre’s action. By their po- 
sitions Lazenby became his partner. They 
played in silence for a minute, the Tall Master 
taking all. “Napoleon was a wonderful player, 
but he lost with me,” he said slowly as he played 
a card upon three others and took them. 

Lazenby was so taken back by this remark 
that, presently, he trumped his partner’s ace, and 
was rewarded by a talon-like look from the Tall 
Master’s eye; but it was immediately followed 
by one of saturnine amusement. 

They pjayed on silently. 

“Ah, you are a wonderful player!” he pres- 
ently said to Pierre, with a look of keen scrutiny. 
“Come, I will play with you — for values — the 
first time in seventy-five years; then, no more!” 

Lazenby and Shon drew away beside the 
Chief Factor. The two played. Meanwhile 
Lazenby said to Shon : 

“The man’s mad. He talks about Napoleon 
as if he’d known him— as if it wasn’t three- 
fourths of a century ago. Does he think we’re 


THE TALL MASTER. 


243 


all born idiots? he’s not over sixty years 

old now. But where the deuce did he come from 
with that Italian face? And the funniest part 
of it is, he reminds me of some one. Did you 
notice how he limped — the awkward beggar!” 

Lazenby had unconsciously lifted his voice, 
and presently the Tall Master turned and said to 
him : 

“I ran a nail into my foot at Leyden seventy- 
odd years ago.” 

“He’s the devil himself,” rejoined Lazenby, 
and he did not lower his voice. 

“Many with angelic gifts are children of His 
Dark Majesty,” said the Tall Master, slowly; 
and though he appeared closely occupied with 
the game, a look of vague sadness came into his 
face. 

For a half hour they played in silence, the 
slight, delicate-featured half-breed, and the mys- 
terious man who had for so long been a thing of 
wonder in the North, a weird influence among 
the Indians. 

There was a strange, cold fierceness in the Tall 
Master’s face. He now staked his precious bun- 
dle against the one thing Pierre prized — the gold 
watch received years ago for a deed of heroism 
on the Chaudiere. The half-breed had always 
spoken of it as amusing, but Shon at least knew 
that to Pierre it was worth his right hand. 

Both men drew breath slowly, and their eyes 
were hard. The stillness became painful; all 
were possessed by the grim spirit of Chance. . . 
The Tall Master won. He came to his feet, his 


244 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


shambling body drawn together to a height. 
Pierre rose also. Their looks clinched. Pierre 
stretched out his hand. 

^‘You are my master at this,’’ he said. 

The other smiled sadly. 

‘‘I have played for the last time. I have not 
forgotten how to win. If I had lost, uncommon 
things had happened. This” — he laid his hand 
oh the bundle and gently undid it — “is my oldest 
friend, since the warm days at Parma . . . . all 
dead ..... all dead.” Out of the velvet wrap- 
ping, broidered with royal and ducal arms, and 
rounded by a wreath of violets — which the Chief 
Factor looked at closely — he drew his violin. He 
lifted it reverently to his lips. 

“My good Garnerius!” he said. “Three 
masters played you, but I am chief of them all. 
They had the classic soul, but I the romantic 
heart— Zes grandes Captdces.'^ His head lifted 
higher. “I am the Master Artist of the World. 
I have found the core of Nature. Here in the 
North is the wonderful soul of things. Beyond 
this, far beyond, where the foolish think is only 
inviolate ice, is the first song of the Ages in a 
very pleasant land. I am the lost Master, and I 
shall return, I shall return . . . but not yet . . . 
not yet.” 

He fetched the instrument to his chin with a 
noble pride. The ugliness of his face was al- 
most beautiful now. 

The Chief Factor’s look was fastened on him 
with bewilderment; he was trying to remember 
something: his mind went feeling, he knew not 


THE TALL MASTER. 


245 


why, for a certain day, a quarter of a century 
before, when he unpacked a box of books and 
papers from England. Most of them were still 
in the Fort. The association of this man with 
these things fretted him. 

The Tall Master swung his bow upward, but 
at that instant there came a knock, and, in re- 
sponse to a call. Wind Driver and Wine Face 
entered. Wine Face was certainly a beautiful 
girl ; and Lazenby might well have been par- 
doned for throwing in his fate with such a 
heathen, if he despaired of ever seeing England 
again. The Tall Master did not turn toward 
these. The Indians sat gracefully on a bearskin 
before the fire. The eyes of the girl were cast 
shyly upon the Man as he stood there unlike an 
ordinary man ; in his face a fine hardness and 
the cold light of the North. He suddenly tipped 
his bow upward and brought it down with a 
most delicate crash upon the strings. Then 
softly, slowly, he passed into a weird fantasy. 
The Indians sat breathless. Upon them it acted 
more impressively than the others : besides, the 
player’s eye was searching them now ; he was 
playing into their very bodies. And they re- 
sponded with some swift shocks of recognition 
crossing their faces. Suddenly the old Indian 
sprang up. He thrust his arms out, and made, 
as if unconsciously, some fantastic yet solemn 
motions. The player smiled in a far-off fashion, 
and presently ran the bow upon the strings in an 
exquisite cry ; and then a beautiful avalanche of 
sound slid from a distance, growing nearer and 


246 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


nearer, till it swept through the room, and im- 
bedded ail in its sweetness. 

At this the old Indian threw himself forward 
at the player’s feet. “It is the song of the 
White Weaver, the maker of the world — the 
music from the Hills of the Mighty Men. . . . 

I knew it — I knew it — but never like that 

It was lost to the world ; the wild cry of the lofty 
stars. ...” His face was wet. 

The girl too had risen. She came forward as 
if in a dream and reverently touched the arm 
of the musician, who paused now, and was look- 
ing at them from under his long eyelashes. She 
said whisperingly : 

“Are you a spirit? Do you come from the 
Hills of the Mighty Men?” 

He answered gravely: 

“I am no spirit. But I have journeyed in the 
Hills of the Mighty Men and along their ancient 
hunting-grounds. This that I have played is 
the ancient music of the world — the music of 
Juban and his comrades. It comes humming 
from the Poles; it rides laughing down the 
planets ; it trembles through the snow ; it gives 
joy to the bones of the wind. . . . And I am 
the voice of it,” he added; and he drew up his 
loose unmanageable body till it looked enormous, 
firm, and dominant. 

The girl’s fingers ran softly over to his breast. 

“I will follow you,” she said, “when you go 
again to the Happy Valleys.” 

Down from his brow there swept a faint hue 
of color, and, for a breath, his eyes closed ten- 


THE TALL MASTER. 


247 


derly with hers. But he straightway gathered 
back his look again, his body shrank, not 
rudely, from her fingers, and he absently 
said: 

“I am old — in years the father of the world. 
It is a man’s life gone since, at Genoa, she laid 
her fingers on my breast like that. . . . These 
things can be no more . . . until the North 
hath its summer again; and I stand young — 
the Master — upon the solemn summits of my 
renown.” 

The girl drew slowly back. Lazenby was 
muttering under his breath now ; he was over- 
whelmed by this change in Wine Face. He had 
been impressed to awe by The Tall Master’s 
music, but he was piqued, and determined not 
to give in easily. He said sneeringly that Mas- 
kelyne and Cooke in music had come to life, and 
suggested a snake-dance. 

The Tall Master heard these things, and im- 
mediately he turned to Lazenby with an angry 
look on his face. His brows hung heavily over 
the dull fire of his eyes ; his hair itself seemed 
like Medusa’s, just quivering into savage life; 
the fingers spread out white and claw-like upon 
the strings as he curved his violin to his chin, 
whereof it became, as it were, a piece. The bow 
shot out and down upon the instrument with a 
great clangor. There eddied into a vast arena 
of sound the prodigious elements of war. Tor- 
ture rose from those four immeasurable cords; 
destruction was afoot upon them; a dreadful 
dance of death supervened. 


248 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Through the Chief Factor’s mind there flashed 
— though mechanically, and only to be remem- 
bered afterward — the words of a schoolday poem. 
It shuttled in and out of the music : 

“Wheel the wild dance, 

While lightnings glance, 

And thunders rattle loud ; 

And call the brave to bloody grave, 

To sleep without a shroud.” 

The face of the player grew old and drawn. 
The skin was wrinkled, but shone, the hair 
spread white, the nose almost met the chin, 
the mouth was all malice. It was old age 
with vast power: conquest volleyed from the 
fingers. 

Shon McGann whispered Aves^ aching with 
the sound ; the Chief Factor shuddered to his 
feet ; Lazenby winced and drew back to the 
wall, putting his hand before his face as though 
the sounds were striking him ; the old Indian 
covered his head with his arms upon the floor. 
Wine Face knelt, her face all gray, her fingers 
lacing and interlacing with pain. Only Pierre 
sat with masterful stillness, his eyes never mov- 
ing from the face of the player; his arms folded; 
his feet firmly wedded to the floor. The sound 
became strangely distressing. It shocked the 
flesh and angered the nerves. Upon Lazenby it 
acted singularly, tie cowered from it, but pres- 
ently, with a look of madness in his eyes, rushed 
forward, arms outstretched, as though to seize 
this intolerable minstrel. There was a sudden 


THE TALL MASTER. 


249 


pause in the playing ; then the room quaked with 
noise, buffeting Lazenby into stillness. The 
sounds changed instantly again, and music of 
an engaging sweetness and delight fell about 
them as in silver drops — an enchanting lyric of 
love. Its exquisite tenderness subdued Lazenby, 
who, but now, had a heart for slaughter. He 
dropped on his knees, threw his head into his 
arms, and sobbed hard. The Tall Master’s 
fingers crept caressingly along one of those 
heavenly veins of sound, his bow poising softly 
over it. The furthest star seemed singing. 

Hs ^ * Hi H« 

At dawn the next day the Golden Dogs were 
gathered for war before the Fort. Immediately 
after the sun rose, the foe were seen gliding 
darkly out of the horizon. From another direc- 
tion came two travelers. These also saw the 
White Hands bearing upon the Fort, and hur- 
ried forward. They reached the gates of the 
Fort in good time, and were welcomed. One 
was a chief trader from a fort in the west. He 
was an old man, and had been many years in 
the service of the H. B. C. ; and, like Lazenby, 
had spent his early days in London, a con- 
noisseur in all its pleasures; the other was 
a voyageur. They had posted on quickly 
to bring news of this crusade of the White 
Hands. 

The hostile Indians came steadily to within a 
few hundred yards of the Golden Dogs. Then 
they sent a brave to say that they had no quarrel 


250 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


with the people of the Fort; and that if the 
Golden Dogs came on they would battle with 
them alone; since the time had come for “one 
to be as both/’ as their Medicine Men had de- 
clared since the days of the Great Race. And 
this signified that one should destroy the other. 

At this all the Golden Dogs ranged into line. 
The sun shone brightly, the long hedge of pine 
woods in the distance caught the color of the 
sky, the flowers of the plains showed hand- 
somely as a carpet of war. The bodies of the 
fighters glistened. You could see the rise and 
fall of their bare, strenuous chests. They stood 
as their forefathers in battle, almost naked, with 
crested head, gleaming ax, scalp- knife, and 
bows and arro'ws. At first there was the threat- 
ening rustle of preparation ; then a great stillness 
came and stayed for a moment ; after which, all 
at once, there sped through the air a big shout 
of battle, and the innumerable tivang of flying 
arrows ; and the opposing hosts ran upon each 
other. 

Pierre and Shon McGann, watching from the 
Fort, cried out v^ith excitement. 

“Divils me darlin’!” called Shon, “are we 
gluin’ our eyes to a chink in the wall, whin the 
tangle of battle goes on beyand? Bedad, Ifil not 
stand it! Look at them twistin’ the neck o’ 
war! Open the ^ gates, open the gates! say I, 
and let us have play with our guns!” 

“Hush! Mon interrupted Pierre. 

“Look! The Tall Master!” 

Hone at the Fort had seen the Tall Master 


THE TALL MASTER. 


251 


since the night before. ISTow he was covering 
the space between the walls and the battle, his 
hair streaming behind him. 

When he came near to the vortex of fight he 
raised his violin to his chin, and instantly a 
piercingly sweet call penetrated the wild uproar. 
The Call filled it, drained through it, wrapped 
it, overcame it; so that it sank away at last like 
the outwash of an exhausted tide : the weft of 
battle stayed unfinished in the loom. 

Then from the Indian lodges came the women 
and children. They drew near to the unearthly 
luxury of that Call, now lilting with an un- 
bounded joy. Battle-axes fell to the ground ; the 
warriors quieted even where they stood locked 
with their foes. The Tall Master now drew away 
from them, facing the north and west. That 
ineffable Call drew them after him with grave 
joy; and thej^ brought their dead and wounded 
along. The women and children glided in among 
the men and followed also. Presently one girl 
ran away from the rest and came close into the 
great leader’s footsteps. 

At that instant, Lazenby, from the wall 
of the Fort, cried out madly, sprang down, 
opened the gates, and rushed toward the girl, 
crying: 

“Wine Face! Wine Face!” 

She did not look behind. But he came close 
to her and caught her by the waist. “Come 
back! Come back! 0 my love, come back!” 
he urged; but she pushed him gently from 
her. 


252 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“Hush! Hush!” she said. “We are going 
to the Happy Valleys. Don’t you hear him call- 
ing?” . . . 

And Lazenby fell back. 

The Tall Master was now playing a wonderful 
thing, half dance, half carnival; but with that 
Cali still beating through it. They were passing 
the Fort at an angle. All within issued forth 
to see. Suddenly the old trader who had come 
that morning started forward with a cry ; then 
stood still. He caught the Factor’s arm; but 
he seemed unable to speak yet; his face was 
troubled, his eyes were hard upon the player. 

The procession passed the empty lodges, leav- 
ing the ground strewn with their weapons, and 
not one of their number stayed behind. They 
passed away toward the high hills of the north- 
west — beautiful austere barriers. 

Still the trader gazed, and was pale, and trem- 
bled. They watched long. The throng of pil- 
grims grew a vague mass ; no longer an army of 
individuals ; and the music came floating back 
with distant charm. At last the old man found 
voice. 

“My God, it is—” 

The Factor touched his arm, interrupting him, 
and drew a picture from his pocket — one but just 
now taken from that musty pile of books, re- 
ceived so many years before. He showed it to 
the old man. 

“Yes, yes,” said the other, “that is he. . . . 
And the world buried him forty years ago!” 


THE TALL MASTER. 


253 


Pierre, standing near, added with soft irony : 

“There are strange things in the world. He 
is a superb gamester ! . . . a grand comrade. ’ 

The music came waving back upon them 
delicately; but the pilgrims were fading from 
view. 

Soon the watchers were alone with the glow- 
ing day. 


The Crimson Flag. 

Talk and think as one would, The Woman 
was striking to see; with marvelous flaxen hair 
and a joyous violet eye. She was all pulse and 
dash ; but she was as much less beautiful than 
the manager’s wife as Tom Liffey was as noth- 
ing beside the manager himself : and one would 
care little to name the two women in the same 
breath if the end had been different. When The 
Woman came to Little Goshen there were others 
of her class there, but they were of a commoner 
sort and degree. She was the queen of a lawless 
court, though she never, from first to last, spoke 
to one of those others who were her people; 
neither did she hold commerce with any of the 
ordinary miners, save Pretty Pierre — but he was 
more gambler than miner — and he went, when 
the matter was all over, and told her some things 
that stripped her soul naked before her eyes. 
Pierre had a wonderful tongue. It was only 
the gentlemen-diggers — and there were many 
of them at Little Goshen — who called upon her 
when the lights were lov/ ; and then there was a 
good deal of muffled mirth in the white house 
among the pines. The rougher miners made no 
quarrel with this, for the gentlemen- diggers 
( 254 ) 


THE CRIMSON FLAG. 


255 


were popular enough; they were merely sar- 
castic and humorous, and said things which, 
coming to The Woman’s ears made her very 
merry ; for she herself had an abundant wit, and 
had spent wild hours with clever men. She did 
not resent the playful insolence that sent a dozen 
miners to her house in the dead of the night with 
a crimson flag, which they quietly screwed to 
her roof ; and paint, with which they deftly put 
a wide stripe of scarlet round the cornice, and 
another round the basement. In the morning, 
when she saw what had been done, she would 
not have the paint removed nor the flag taken 
down; for, she said, the stripes looked very well, 
and the other would show that she was always 
at home. 

Now, the notable thing was that Heldon, the 
manager, was in The Woman’s house on the 
night this was done. Tom Liffey, the lumpish 
guide and trapper, saw him go in; and, days 
afterward, he said to Pierre : 

“Divils me own! but this is a bad hour for 
Heldon’s wife — she with a face like a princess 
and eyes like the fear o’ God. Nivir a wan did 
I see like her, since I came out of Erin with a 
clatter of hoofs behoind me and a squall on the 
sea before. There’s wimmin there wid cheeks 
like roses and buttermilk, and a touch that’d 
make y’r heart pound on y’r ribs ; but none that’s 
grander than Heldon’s wife. To lave her for 
that other, standin’ hip-high in her shame, is 
temptin’ the fires of Heaven, say I, that basted 
the sinners o’ Sodom.” 


256 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Pierre, pausing between the whiffs of a cigar- 
ette, said: 

“So? But you know more of catching foxes 
in winter, and climbing mountains in summer, 
and the grip of the arm of an In jin girl, than 
of these things. You are young, quite young in 
the world, Tom Liffey.” 

“Young I may be, with a glint o’ gray at me 
temples from a night o’ trouble beyand in the 
hills; but I’m the man, an’ the only man, that’s 
climbed to the glacier-top — God’s Playground, 
as they call it : and nivir a dirty trick have I 
done to In jin girl or any other; and be damned 
to you there! say I.” 

“Sometimes I think you are as foolish as Shon 
McGann,” compassionately replied the half- 
breed. “You have almighty virtue, and you 
did that brave trick of the glacier; but great 
men have fallen. You are not dead yet. Still, 
as you say, Heldon’s wife is noble to see. She 
is grave and cold, and speaks little; but there is 
something in her which is not of the meek of the 
earth. Some women say nothing, and suffer 
and forgive, and take such as Heldon back to 
their bosoms; but there are others — I remem- 
ber a woman— well, it is no matter, it was long 
ago ; but they two are as if born of one mother ; 
and what comes of this will be mad play — mad 
play.” 

“Av coorse his wife may not get to know of 
it, and — ” 

“Not get to know it! ’Tsh, you are a child—” 

“Faith, I’ll say what I think, and that in y’r 


THE CRIMSON FLAG. 


257 


face ! Maybe he’ll tire of the handsome rip — for 
handsome she is, like a yellow lily growin’ out 
o’ mud — and go back to his lawful wife, that 
believes he’s at the mines, when he’s drinkin’ 
and colloguin’ wid a fly-away.” 

Pierre slowly wheeled till he had the Irishman 
straight in his eye. Then he said in a low, cut- 
ting tone : 

“I suppose your heart aches for the beautiful 
lady, eh?” Here he screwed his slight forefinger 
into Tom’s breast; then he added sharply: “By 
the holy Heaven, but you make me angry ! You 
talk too much. Such men get into trouble. And 
keep down the riot of that sympathy of yours, 
Tom Liffey, or you’ll walk on the edge of knives 
one day. And now take an inch of whisky and 
ease your anxious soul. Voilh!'^'' After a 
moment he added: “Women work these things 
out for themselves.” 

Then the two left the hut, and amiably strolled 
together to the center of the village, where they 
parted. 

It was as Pierre had said : the woman would 
work the thing out for herself. Later that even- 
ing Heldon’s wife stood cloa,ked and veiled in 
the shadows of the pines, facing the house with 
The Crimson Flag. Her eyes shifted ever from 
the door to the flag, which was stirred by the 
light breeze. Once or twice she shivered as with 
cold, but she instantly stilled again, and watched. 
It was midnight. Here and there beyond in the 
village a light showed, and straggling voices 
floPvted faintly toward her. For a long time no 


258 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


sound came from the house. But at last she 
heard a laugh. At that she drew something 
from her pocket, and held it firmly in her hand. 
Once she turned and looked at another house 
far up on the hill, where lights were burning. 
It was Heldon’s house — her home. A sharp 
sound as of anguish and anger escaped her; 
then she fastened her eyes on the door in front 
of her. 

At that moment Tom Liffey was standing 
with his hands on his hips looking at Heldon’s 
home on the hill; and he said some rumbling 
words, then strode on down the road, and sud- 
denly paused near the wife. He did not see her. 
He faced the door at which she was looking, and 
shook his fist at it. 

“A murrain bn y’rsowl!” said he, “as there’s 
plague in y’r body, and hell in the slide of y’r 
feet, like the trail of the red spider. And out 
o’ that come ye, Heldon, for I know y’re there. 
Out of that, ye beast ! . . . But how ca7i ye go 
back — you that’s rolled in that sewer — to the 
loveliest woman that ever trod the neck o’ the 
world! Damned y’ are in every joint o’ y’r 
frame, and damned is y’r sowl, say I, for bring- 
ing sorrow to her ; and I hate you as much for 
that, as I could worship her was she not your 
wife and a lady o’ blood, God save her!” 

Then, shaking his fist once more, he swung 
away slowly down the road. During this the 
v/ife’s teeth held together as though they were 
of a piece. She looked after Tom Liffey and 
smiled; but it was a dreadful smile. 


THE CRIMSON FLAG. 


259 


“He worships me, that common man — wor- 
ships me!” she said. “This man who was my 
husband has shamed me, left me. Well — ” 

The door of the house opened ; a man came out. 
His wife leaned a little forward, and something 
clicked ominously in her hand. But a voice 
came up the road toward them through the clear 
air — the voice of Tom Lilfey. The husband 
paused to listen ; the wife mechanically did the 
same. The husband remembered this after- 
ward : it was the key to, and the beginning of, 
a tragedy. These are the words the Irishman 
sang : 

“She was a queen, she stood up there before me, 

My blood went roarin’ when she touched my hand; 

She kissed me on the lips, and then she swore me 
To die for her — and happy was the land I’’ 

A new and singular look came into her face. It 
transformed her. “That,” she said in a whisper 
to herself — “that! He knows the way.” 

As her husband turned toward his home, she 
turned also. He heard the rustle of garments, 
and he could just discern the cloaked figure in 
the shadows. He hurried on ; the figure flitted 
ahead of him. A fear possessed him in spite 
of his will. He turned back. The figure stood 
still for a moment, then followed him. He 
braced himself, faced about, and walked toward 
it : it stopped and waited. He had not the cour- 
age. He went back again swiftly toward the 
house he had left. Again he looked behind him. 
The figure was standing, not far in the pines. 


260 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


He wheeled suddenly toward the house, turned 
a key in the door, and entered. 

Then the wife went to that which had been 
her home : Heldon did not go thither until the 
first fiush of morning. Pierre, returning from 
an all-night sitting at cards, met him, and saw 
the careworn look on his face. The half-breed 
smiled. He knew that the event was doubling 
on the man. When Heldon reached his house, 
he went to his wife’s room. It was locked. Then 
he walked down to his mines with a miserable 
shame and anger at his heart. He did not pass 
The Crimson Flag. He went by another way. 

That evening, in the dusk, a woman knocked 
at Tom Liffey’s door. He opened it. 

“Are you alone?” she said. 

“I am alone, lady.” 

“I will come in,” she added. 

“You will — come in?” he faltered. 

She drew near him, and reached out and gently 
caught his hand. 

“Ah!” he said, with a sound almost like a 
sob in its intensity, and the blood flushed to his 
hair. 

He stepped aside, and she entered. In the 
light of the candle her eye burned into his, but 
her face wore a shining coldness. She leaned 
toward him. 

“You said you could worship me,” she whis- 
pered, “and you cursed him. Well — worship 
me — altogether — and that will curse him, as he 
has killed me.” 

“Dear lady!” he said, in an awed, over- 


THE CRIMSON FLAG. 


261 


whelmed murmur; and he fell back to the 
wall. 

She came toward him. “Am I not beautiful?” 
she urged. She took his hand. His eye swam 
with hers. But his look was different from 
hers, though he could not know that. His was 
the madness of a man in a dream ; hers was a 
painful thing. The Furies dwelt in her. She 
softly lifted his hand above his head, and whis- 
pered: “Swear.” And she kissed him. Her 
lips were icy, though he did not think so. The 
blood tossed in his veins. He swore : but, doing 
so, he could not conceive all that would be re- 
quired of him. He was hers, body and soul, 
and she had resolved on a grim thing. . . . 
In the darkness, they left the hut and passed 
into the woods, and slowly up through the 
hills. 

Heldon returned to his home that night to find 
it empty. There were no servants. There was 
no wife. Her cat and dog lay dead upon the 
hearth-rug. Her clothing was cut into strips. 
Her wedding-dress was a charred heap on the 
fireplace. Her jewelry lay molten with it. Her 
portrait had been torn from its frame. 

An intolerable fear possessed him. Drops of 
sweat hung on his forehead and his hands. He 
fled toward the town. He bit his finger-nails 
till they bled as he passed the house in the pines. 
He lifted his arm as if the flappings of The 
Crimson Flag were blows in his face. 

At last he passed Tom Liffey’s hut. He saw 
Pierre coming from it. The look on the gam- 


262 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


bier’s face was one of gloomy wonder. His 
fingers trembled as he lighted a cigarette, and 
that was an unusual thing. The form of Heldon 
edged within the light. Pierre dropped the 
match and said to him — “You are looking for 
your wife?” 

Heldon bowed his head. The other threw 
open the door of the hut. “Come in here,” he 
said. They entered. Pierre pointed to a wo- 
man’s hat on the table. “Do you know that?” 
he asked, huskily, for he was moved. But Hel- 
don only nodded dazedly. 

Pierre continued: 

“I was to have met Tom Liffey here to-night. 
He is not here. You hoped — I suppose — to see 
your wife in your — home. She is not there. He 
left a word on paper for me. I have torn it up. 
Writing is the enemy of man. But I know where 
he is gone. I know also where your wife has 
gone.” 

Heldon’s face v^as of a hateful paleness. . . . 
They passed out into the night. 

“Where are you’ going?” Heldon said. 

“To God’s Playground, if we can get there.” 

“To God’s Playground? To the glacier- top? 
You are mad.” 

“No, but he and she were mad. Come on.” 

Then he whispered something, and Heldon 
gave a great cry, and they plunged into the 
woods. 

In the morning the people of Little Goshen, 
looking toward the glacier, saw a flag (they 
knew afterward that it was crimson) flying on 


THE CRIMSON FLAG. 


263 


it. Near it were two human figures. A miner, 
looking through a field-glass, said that one figure 
was crouching by the flag-staff, and that it was 
a woman. The other figure near was a man. As 
the morning wore on, they saw upon a crag of 
ice below the sloping glacier two men looking 
upward toward the flag. One of them seemed 
to shriek out, and threw up his hands, and made 
as if to rush forward ; but the other drew him 
back. 

Heldon knew what revenge and disgrace may 
be at their worst. In vain he tried to reach 
God’s Playground. Only one man knew the 
way, and he was dead upon it — with Heldon ’s 
wife: two shameless suicides. . . . When he 
came down from the mountain the hair upon his 
face was white, though that upon his head re- 
mained black as it had always been. And those 
frozen figures stayed there like statues with that 
other crimson flag; until, one day, a great- 
bodied wind swept out of the north, and, in 
pity, carried them down a bottomless fissure. 

But long before this happened, The Woman 
had fled from Little Goshen in the night, and 
her house was burned to the ground. 


The Flood. 


W ENDLING came to Fort Anne on the day that 
the Reverend Ezra Badgley and an unknown 
girl were buried. And that was a notable thing. 
The man had been found dead at his evening 
meal ; the girl had died on the same day ; and 
they were buried side by side. This caused much 
scandal, for the man was holy, and the girl, as 
many women said, was probably evil altogether. 
At the graves, when the minister's people saw 
’what was being done, they piously protested; 
but the Factor, to whom Pierre had whispered a 
word, answered them gravely that the matter 
should go on : since none knew but the woman 
was as worthy of heaven as the man. Wendling 
chanced to stand beside Pretty Pierre. 

“Who knows!” he said aloud, looking hard 
at the graves, “who knows! . . . She died be- 
fore him, but the dead can strike.” 

Pierre did not answer immediately, for the 
Factor was calling the earth down on both coffins ; 
but after a moment he added : 

“Yes, the dead can strike.” And then the 
eyes of the two men caught and stayed, and they 
knew that they had things to say to each other 
in the world. 

They became friends. And that, perhaps, was 
( 264 ) 


THE FLOOD. 


265 


not greatly to Wendling’s credit; for in the eyes 
of many Pierre was an outcast and an outlaw. 
Maybe some of the women disliked this friend- 
ship most; since Wendling was a handsome 
man, and Pierre was never known to seek them, 
good or bad; and they blamed him for the 
other’s coldness, for his unconcerned yet re- 
spectful eye. 

“There’s Nelly Nolan would dance after him 
to the world’s end,” said ShonMcGannto Pierre 
one day; “and the Widdy Jerome herself, wid 
her flamin’ cheeks and the wild fun in her eye, 
croons like a babe at the breast as he slides out 
his cash on the bar; and over on Gansonby’s 
Flat there’s — ” 

“There’s many a fool,” sharply interjected 
Pierre, as he pushed the needle through a button 
he was sewing on his coat. 

“Bedad, there’s a pair of fools here, anyway, 
say I ; for the women might die without lift at 
waist or brush of lip, and neither of ye’d say, 
‘Here’s to the joy of us, goddess, me own!’ ” 

Pierre . seemed to be intently watching the 
needle-point as it pierced up the button-eye, and 
his reply was given with a slowness correspond- 
ing to the sedate passage of the needle. “Wend- 
ling, you think, cares nothing for women? Well, 
men who are like that cared once for one woman, 
and when that was over — but, pshaw ! I will 
not talk. You are no thinker, Shon McGann. 
You blunder through the world. And you’ll 
tremble as much to a woman’s thumb in fifty 
years as now.” 


266 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“By the holy smoke,” said Shon, “though I 
tremble at that, maybe. I’ll not tremble, as 
Wendling, at nothing at all.” Here Pierre 
looked up sharply, then dropped his eyes on his 
work again. Shon lapsed suddenly into a 
moodiness. 

“Yes,” said Pierre, “as Wendling, at noth- 
ing at all? Well?” 

“Well, this, Pierre, for you that’s a thinker 
from me that’s none. I was walking with him 
in Red Glen yesterday. Sudden he took to 
shiverin’, and snatched me by the arm, and a 
mad look shot out of his handsome face. ‘Hush !’ 
says he. I listened. There was a sound like 
the hard rattle of a creek over stones, and then 
another sound behind that. ‘Come quick,’ says 
he, the sweat standin’ thick on him ; and he ran 
me up the bank — for it was at the beginnin’ of 
the Glen where the sides were low — and there 
we stood pantin’ and starin’ flat at each other. 
‘What’s that? and what’s got its hand on ye? 
for y’ are cold as death, an’ pinched in the face, 
an’ you’ve bruised my arm,’ said I.. And he 
looked round him slow and breathed hard, then 
drew his fingers through the sweat on his cheek. 
‘I’m not well, and I thought I heard — you heard 
it; what was it like?’ said he; and he peered 
close at me. ‘Like water,’ said I ; ‘a little creek 
near, and a flood cornin’ far off.’ ‘Yes, just 
that,’ said he; ‘it’s some trick of wind in the 
place, but it makes a man foolish, and an inch of 
brandy would be the right thing.’ I didn’t say 
No to that. And on we came, and brandy we 


THE FLOOD. 


267 


had with a wish in the eye of Nelly Nolan that’d 
warm the heart of a tomb. . . . And there’s a 
cud for 3^our chewin’, Pierre. Think that by 
the neck and the tail, and the divil absolve 
you.” 

During this, Pierre had finished with the but- 
ton. He had drawn on his coat and lifted his 
hat, and now lounged, trying the point of the 
needle with his forefinger. When Shon ended, 
he said with a sidelong glance : 

“But what did you think of all that, Shon?” 

“Think! «ff'here it was! What’s the use of 
thinkin’? There’s many a trick in the world 
with wind or with spirit, as I’ve seen often 
enough in ould Ireland, and it’s not to be guessed 
by me. ’ ’ Here his voice got a little lower and a 
trifle solemn. “For, Pierre,” spoke he, “there’s 
what’s more than life or death, and sorra wan 
can we tell what it is ; but we’ll know some day 
v/hin — ” 

“When we’ve taken the leap at the Almighty 
Ditch,” said Pierre, with a grave kind of light- 
ness. “Yes, it is all strange. But even the 
Almighty Ditch is worth the doing: nearly 
everything is worth the doing; being young, 
growing old, fighting, loving — when youth is 
on— hating, eating, drinking, working, playing 
big games; all is worth it except two things.” 

“And what are they, bedad?” 

“Thy neighbor’s wife. Murder. — Those are 
horrible. They double on a man one time or 
another; always.” 

Here, as in curiosity, Pierre pierced his finger 


268 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


with the needle, and watched the blood form in 
a little globule. Looking at it meditatively and 
sardonically, he said : 

“There is only one end to these. Blood for 
blood is a great matter ; and I used to wonder if 
it would not be terrible fcr a man to see his 
death advancing on him drop by drop, like that. ’ ’ 
And he let the spot of blood fall to the floor. 
“But now I know that there is a punishment 
vforse than that . . . mon Dieu ! worse than 
that,” he added. ^ 

Into Shon’s face a strange look had suddenly 
come. 

“Yes, there’s something worse than that, 
Pierre.” 

“So, hien 

Shoii made the sacred gesture of his creed. 

“To be punished by the dead. And not see 
them — only hear them.” And his eyes steadied 
firmly to the other’s. 

Pierre was about to reply, but there came the 
sound of footsteps through the open door, and 
presently Wendling entered slowly. He was pale 
and worn, and his eyes looked out with a search- 
ing anxiousness. But that did not render him 
less comely. He had always dressed in black 
and white, and this now added to the easy and 
yet severe refinement of his person. His birth 
and breeding had occurred in places unfrequented 
by such as Shon and Pierre; but plains and wild 
life level all ; and men are friends according to 
their taste and will, and by no other law. Hence 


THE FLOOD. 


260 


these with Wendling. He stretched out his hand 
to each without a word. The hand-shake was 
unusual; he had little demonstration ever. Shon 
looked up surprised, but responded. Pierre fol- 
lowed with a swift, inquiring look ; then, in the 
succeeding pause, he offered cigarettes. Wend- 
ling took one; and all, silent, sat down. The 
sun streamed intemperately through the doorway, 
making a broad ribbon of light straight across 
the floor to Wendling’s feet. After lighting his 
cigarette, he looked into the sunlight for a mo- 
ment, still not speaking. Shon meanwhile had 
started his pipe, and now, as if he found the 
silence awkward — 

“It’s a day for God’s country/, this,” he said: 
“to make man a Christian for little or much, 
though he play with the Divil betune whiles.” 

Without looking at them, Wendling said, in a 
low voice : 

“It was just such a day, down there in Que- 
bec, when it happened. . You could hear the 
swill of the river, and the water licking the 
piers, and the sav/s in the Big Mill and the Lit- 
tle Mill as they marched through the timber, 
flashing their teeth like bayonets. It’s a wonder- 
ful sound on a hot, clear day — that wild, keen 
singing of .the saws, like the cry of a live thing 
fighting and conquering. Up from the fresh- 
cut lumber in the yards there came a smell like 
the juice of apples, and the sawdust, as you thrust 
your hand into it, was as cool and soft as the 
leaves of a clove-flower in the dew. On these 
days the town was always still. It looked sleep- 


270 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


ing^, and you saw the heat quivering up from 
the wooden walls and the roofs of cedar shingles 
as though the houses were breathing.” 

Here he paused, still intent on the shaking 
sunshine. Then he turned to the others as if 
suddenly aware that he had been talking to 
them. Shon was about to speak, but Pierre 
threw a restraining glance, and, instead, they 
all looked through the doorway and beyond. In 
the settlement below they saw the effect that 
AYendling had described. The houses breathed. 
A grasshopper went clacking past, a dog at the 
door snapped up a fly; but there seemed no 
other life of day. Wendling nodded his head 
toward the distance. 

“It was quiet, like that. I stood and watched 
the mills and the yards, and listened to the saws, 
and looked at the great slide, and the logs on 
the river : and I said ever to myself that it was 
all mine; all. Then I turned to a big house on 
the hillock beyond the cedars, whose window 
were open, with a cool dusk lying behind them. 
More than all else, I loved to think I owned that 
house and what was in it. . . . She was a 
beautiful woman. And she used to sit in a room 
facing the mill — though the house fronted an- 
other way — thinking of me, I did n'ot. doubt, and 
working at some delicate needle-stuff. There 
never had been a sharp word between us, save 
when I quarreled bitterly with her brother, and 
he left the mill and went away. But she got 
over that mostly, though the lad’s name was 
never mentioned between us. That day I was 


THE FLOOD. 


271 


SO hungry for the sight of her that I got my 
field-glass — used to watch my vessels and rafts 
making across the baj^ — and trained it on^^he 
window where I knew she sat. I thought it 
would amuse her too, when I went back at night, 
if I told her what she had been doing. I laughed 
to myself at the thought of it as I adjusted the 
glass. ... I looked. . . . There was no more 
laughing. ... I saw her, and in front of her 
a man, with his back half on me. I could not 
recognize him, though at the instant I thought 
he was something familiar. I failed to get his 
face at all. Hers I found indistinctly. But I 
saw him catch her playfully by the chin ! After 
a little they rose. He put his arm about her 
and kissed her, and he ran his fingers through 
her hair. She had such fine golden hair; so 
light, and lifted to every breath. . . . Some- 
thing got into my brain. I know now it was 
the maggot which sent Othello mad. The world 
in that hour was malicious, awful. . . . 

“After a time — ifc seemed ages : she and every- 
thing had receded so far — I went . . . home. 
At the door I asked the servant who had been 
there. She hesitated, confused, and then said 
the young curate of the parish. I was very 
cool: for madness is a strange thing ; you see 
everything with an intense aching clearness — 
that is the trouble. . . . She was more kind 
than common. I do not think I was unusual. I 
was playing a part W’ell — my grandmother had 
Indian blood like yours, Pierre — and I was wait- 
ing. I was even nicely critical of her to myself. 


272 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


I balanced the mole on her neck against her 
general beauty ; the curve of her instep, I de- 
cided, was a little too emphatic. I passed her 
back and forth before me, weighing her at every 
point ; but yet these two things were the only 
imperfections. I pronounced her an exceeding 
piece of art— and infamy. I was much interested 
to see how she could appear perfect in her soul. 
I encouraged her to talk. I saw with devilish 
irony that an angel spoke. And, to cap it all, she 
assumed the fascinating air of the mediator — for 
her brother ; seeking a reconciliation between us. 
Her amazing art of person and mind so worked 
upon me that it became unendurable ; it was so 
exquisite — and so shameless. I was sitting 
where the priest had sat that afternoon; and 
when she leaned toward me I caught her chin 
lightly and trailed my fingers through her hair 
as he had done: and that ended it, for I was 
cold, and my heart worked with horrible slow- 
ness. Just as a wave poises at its height before 
breaking upon the shore, it hung at every pulse- 
beat, and then seemed to fall over with a sick- 
ening thud. I arose, and, acting still, spoke 
impatiently of her brother. Tears sprang to her 
eyes. Such divine dissimulation, I thought; — 
too good for earth. She turned to leave the 
room, and I did not stay her. Yet we were to- 
gether again that night. ... I was only wait- 
ing.” 

The cigarette had dropped from his fingers to 
the fioor, and lay there smoking. Shon’s face 
was fixed with anxiety; Pierre’s eyes played 


THE FLOOD. 


273 


gravely with the sunshine. Wendling drew 
a heavy breath, and then went on. 

“Again, next day, it was like this — the world 
draining the heat. ... I watched from the 
Big Mill. I saw them again. He leaned over 
her chair and buried his face in her hair. The 
proof was absolute now. . . . I started away, 
going a roundabout, that I might not be seen. 
It took me some time. I was passing through a 
clump of cedar when I saw them making toward 
the trees skirting the river. Their backs were 
on me. Suddenly they diverted their steps to- 
ward the great slide, shut off from water this 
last few months, and used as a quarry to deepen 
it. Some petrified things had been found in the 
rocks, but I did not think they were going to 
these. I saw them climb down the rocky steps; 
and presently they were lost to view. The gates 
of the slide could be opened by machinery from 
the Little Mill. A terrible, deliciously malig- 
nant thought came to me. I remember how the 
sunlight crept away from me and left me in the 
dark. I stole through that darkness to the Little 
Mill. I went to the machinery for opening the 
gates. Very gently I set it in motion, facing the 
slide as I did so. I could see it through the open 
sides of the mfilL I smiled to think what the tiny 
creek, always creeping through a faint leak in 
the gates and falling with a granite rattle on 
the stones, would now become. I pushed the 
lever harder — harder. I saw the gates suddenly 
gif e, then fly open, and the river sprang roaring 
massively through them. I heard a shriek 


274 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


through, the roar. I shuddered ; and a horrible 
sickness came on me. . . . And as I turned 
from the machinery, I saw the young priest 
coming at me through a doorway ! . . . It was 
not the priest and my wife that I had killed ; but 
my wife and her brother. . . . ” 

He threw his head back as though something 
clamped his throat. His voice roughened with 
misery — 

“The young priest buried them both, and peo- 
ple did not know the truth. They were even 
sorry for me. But I gave up the mills — all; 
and I became homeless .... this.” 

Kow he looked up at the two men, and 
said : 

“I have told you because you know something, 
and because there will, I think, be. an end soon.” 
He got up and reached out a trembling hand for 
a cigarette. Pierre gave him one. “Will you 
walk with me?” he asked. 

Shon shook his head. 

“God forgive you!” he replied; “I can’t do 
it.” 

But Wendlingand Pierre left the hut together. 
They walked for an hour, scarcely speaking, and 
not considering where they went. At last Pierre 
mechanically turned to go down into Red Glen. 
Wendling stopped short, then, with a sighing 
laugh, strode on. 

“Shon has told you what happened here?” he 
said. 

Pierre nodded. 

“And you know what came once when you 


THE FLOOD. 


275 


walked with me. . . . The dead can strike,” 
he added. 

Pierre sought his eye. 

“The minister and the girl buried together 
that day,” he said, “were — ” 

He stopped, for behind him he heard the sharp 
cold trickle of water. Silent they walked on. It 
followed them. They could not get out of the 
Glen now until they had compassed its length — 
the walls were high. The sound grew. The 
men faced each other. “Good-by,” said Wend- 
ling ; and he reached out his hand swiftly. But 
Pierre heard a mighty flood groaning on them., 
and he blinded as he stretched his arm in re- 
sponse. He caught at Wendling’s shoulder, but 
felt him lifted and carried away, while he him- 
self stood still in a screeching wind and heard 
impalpable water rushing over him. In a min- 
ute it was gone ; and he stood alone in Ked Glen. 

He gathered himself up and ran. Far down, 
where the Glen opened to the plain, he found 
Wendling. The hands were w^rinkled; the face 
was cold; the body was wet; the man was 
drowned and dead. 


In Pipi Valley. 


“Divils me darlins, it’s a memory I have of 
a time whin luck wasn’t foldin’ her arms round 
me, and not so far back aither, and I on the wal- 
laby track hotfoot for the City o’ Gold.” 

Shon McGann said this in the course of a dis- 
cussion on the prosperity of the Pipi Valley. 
Pretty Pierre remarked nonchalantly in reply — 

“The wallaby track — eh — what is that, Shon?” 

“It’s a bit of a haytjp.en y’ are, Pierre — the 
wallaby track? — that’s the name in Australia for 
trampin’ west through the plains o’ the I'Tever 
!N’ever Country lookin’ for the luck o’ the world ; 
as, bedad, it’s meself that knows it, and no other, 
and not by book or tollin’ either, but with the 
grip of thirst at me throat and a reef in me belt 
every hour to quiet the gnawin’;” — and Shon 
proceeded to light his pipe afresh. 

“But the City o’ Gold — was there much 
wealth for you there, Shon?” 

Shon laughed, and said between the puffs of 
smoke — 

“Wealth for me, is it? Oh, mother o’ Moses! 
wealth of work and the pride of livin’ in the 
heart of us, and the grip of an honest hand 
( 276 ) 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


277 


betune whiles; and what more do y’ want, 
Pierre?’’ 

The Frenchman’s drooping eyelids closed a 
little more, and he replied, meditatively — 

“Money? — no, that is not, ShonMcGann. The 
good fellowship of thirst? — yes, a little. The 
grip of the honest hand? — quite; and the clinch 
of an honest waist? well, perhaps; of the waist 
which is not honest? — tsh; he is gay — and 
so!” 

The Irishman took his pipe from his mouth 
and held it poised before him. He looked in- 
quiringly and a little f rowningly at the other for 
a moment, as if doubtful whether to resent the 
sneer that accompanied the words just spoken; 
but at last he good-humoredly said : 

“Blood o’ me bones, but it’s much I fear the 
honest waist hasn’t always been me portion — 
Heaven forgive me!” 

Dieu, this Irishman!” replied Pierre. 

‘ ‘ He is gay ; of good heart ; he smiles, and the 
women are at his heels; he laughs, and they are 
on their knees — he is a fool!” 

Still Shon McGann laughed. 

“A fool I am, Pierre, or I’d be in ould Ireland 
at this minute, with a roof o’ me own over me 
and the friends o’ me youth round me, and brats 
on me knee, and the fear o’ God in me heart.” 

“il/a^s,Shon,” mockingly rejoined the French- 
man, “this is not Ireland, but there is much like 
that to be done here. There is a roof, and there 
is that woman at Ward’s Mistake, and the brats 
— eh, by and by?” 


278 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Short’s face clouded ; he hesitated, then replied 
sharply : 

^^That woman, do y’ say, Pierre, she that 
nursed me when The Honorable and meself were 
taken out o’ Sandy Drift more dead than livin’ ; 
she that brought me back to life as good as 
ever, barrin’ this scar on me forehead and a 
stiffness at me elbow, and The Honorable as 
right as the sun, more luck to him — which he 
doesn’t need at all, with the wind of fortune in 
his back and shiftin’ neither to right nor left ! — 
That woman! faith, y’d better not cut the words 
so sharp betune yer teeth, Pierre.” 

“But I will say more — a little — just the same. 
She nursed you — well, that is good; but it is 
good also, I think, you pay her for that, and 
stop the rest. Women are fools, or else they are 
worse. This one? — she is worse. Yes; you will 
take my advice, Shon McGann.” 

The Irishman came to his feet with a spring, 
and his words were angry. 

“It doesn’t come well from Pretty Pierre, the 
gambler, to be revilin’ a woman; and I throw it 
in y’r face, though I’ve slept under the same 
blanket with ye, an’ drank out of the same cup 
on many a tramp, that you lie dirty and black 
when ye spake ill — of my wife.” 

This conversation had occurred in a quiet cor- 
ner of the bar-room of the Saints’ Repose. The 
first few sentences had not been heard by the oth- 
ers present; but Shon’s last speech, delivered in 
a ringing tone, drew the miners to their feet, in 
expectation of seeing shots exchanged at once. 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


279 


The code required satisfaction, immediate and 
decisive. Shon was not armed, and some one 
thrust a pistol toward him ; but he did not take 
it. Pierre rose, and coming slowly to him, laid 
a slender finger on his chest, and said : 

“So ! I did not know that she was your wife. 
That is a surprise.” 

The miners nodded assent. He continued: 

“Lucy Rives your wife! Ha, ha, Shon 
McGann, that is such a joke.” 

“It’s no joke, but God’s truth, and the lie is 
with you, Pierre.” 

Murmurs of anticipation ran round the room; 
but the Frenchman said : 

“There will be satisfaction altogether; but it 
is my whim to prove what I say first; then” — 
fondling his revolver — “then we shall settle! 
But, see : you will meet me here at ten o’clock 
to-night, and I will make it, I swear to you, so 
clear, that the woman is vile.” 

The Irishman suddenly clutched the gambler, 
shook him like a dog, and threw him against the 
further wall. Pierre’s pistol was leveled from 
the instant Shon moved; but he did not use it. 
He rose on one knee after the violent fall, and 
pointing it at the other’s head, said coolly : 

“I could kill you, my friend, so easy! But it 
is not my whim. Till ten o’clock is not long to 
wait, and then, just here, one of us shall die. Is 
it not so?” 

The Irishman did not flinch before the pistol. 
He said with low fierceness : 

“At ten o’clock, or now, or any time, or at 


280 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


any place, y’ll find me ready to break the back 
of the lies y’ve spoken, or be broken meself. 
Lucy Rives is my wife, and she’s true and 
straight as the sun in the sky. I’ll be here at 
ten o’clock, and as ye say, Pierre, one of us 
makes the long reckoning for this. ’ ’ And he 
opened the door and went out. 

The half-breed moved to the bar, and, throw- 
ing down a handful of silver, said : 

“It is good we drink after so much heat. 
Come on, come on, comrades.” 

The miners responded to the invitation. Their 
sympathy was mostly with Shon McGann ; their 
admiration was about equally divided ; for Pretty 
Pierre had the quality of courage in as active a 
degree as the Irishman, and they knew that 
some extraordinary motive, promising greater 
excitement, was behind the Frenchman’s refusal 
to send a bullet through Shon’s head a moment 
before. 

King Kinkley, the best shot in the Valley next 
to Pierre, had watched the unusual development 
of the incident with interest ; and when his glass 
had been filled he said, thoughtfully : 

“This thing isn’t according to Hoyle. There’s 
never been any trouble just like it in the Valley 
before. What’s that McGann said about the 
lady being his wife? If it’s the case, where hev 
we been in the show? Where was we when the 
license was around? It isn’t good citizenship, 
and I hev my doubts. ’ ’ 

Another miner, known as the Presbyterian, 
added : 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


281 


‘‘There’s some skulduggery in it, I guess. The 
lady has had as much protection as if she was 
the sister of every citizen of the place, just as 
much as Lady Jane here (Lady Jane, the 
daughter of the proprietor of the Saints’ Re- 
pose, administered drinks), and she’s played 
this stacked hand on us, has gone one better 
on the sly.” 

“Pierre,” said King Kinkley, “you’re on the 
track of the secret, and appear to hev the ad- 
vantage of the lady; blaze it — ^blaze it out.” 

Pierre rejoined : 

“I know something; but it is good we wait 
until ten o’clock. Then I will show you all the 
cards in the pack. Yes, so.” 

And though there was some grumbling, Pierre 
had his way. The spirit of adventure and mu- 
tual interest had thrown the Frenchman, the 
Irishman, and the Honorable Just Trafford to- 
gether on the cold side of the Canadian Rockies; 
and they had journeyed to this other side, where 
the warm breath from the Pacific passed to its 
congealing in the ranges. They had come to 
the Pipi field when it was languishing. Prom 
the moment of their coming its luck changed ; it 
became prosperous. They conquered the Valley 
each after his kind. The Honorable — he was 
always called that — ^mastered its resources by a 
series of “great lucks,” as Pierre termed it, had 
achieved a fortune, and made no enemies; and 
but two months before the day whose incidents 
are here recorded, had gone to the coast on busi- 
ness. Shon had won the reputation of being a 


282 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“white man,” to say nothing of his victories in 
the* region of gallantry. He made no wealth; 
he only got that he might spend. Irishman-like, 
he would barter the chances of fortune for the 
lilt of a voice or the clatter of a pretty foot. 

Pierre v/as different. “Women, ah, no!” he 
would say; “they make men fools or devils.” 

His temptation lay not that way. When the 
three first came to the Pipi, Pierre was a miner, 
simply ; but nearly all his life he had been some- 
thing else, as many a devastated pocket on the 
east of the Rockies could bear witness ; and his 
new career was alien to his soul. Temptation 
grew greatly on him at the Pipi, and in the days 
before he yielded to it he might have been seen 
at midnight in his hut playing solitaire. Why 
he abstained at first from practicing his real 
profession is accounted for in two ways; he had 
tasted some of the sweets of honest companion- 
ship with The Honorable and Shon, and then he 
had a memory of an ugly night at Pardon’s 
Drive a year before, when he stood over his own 
brother’s body, shot to death by accident in a 
gambling row having its origin with himself. 
These things had held him back for a time; but 
he was weaker than his ruling passion. 

The Pipi was a young and comparatively vir- 
gin field; the quarry was at his hand. He did 
not love money for its own sake; it was the 
game that enthralled him. He would have played 
his life against the treasury of a kingdom, and 
winning it with loaded double sixes, have handed 
back the spoil as an unredeemable national debt. 


TN PIPI VALLEY. 


283 


He fell at last, and in falling conquered the 
Pipi Valley; at the same time he was consid- 
ered a fearless and liberal citizen, who could 
shoot as straight as he played well. He made 
an excursion to another field, however, at an 
opportune time, and it was during this interval 
that the accident to Shon and The Honorable had 
happened. He returned but a few hours before 
this quarrel with Shon occurred, and in the 
Saints’ Repose, whither he had at once gone, he 
was of the accident. While his informant 
related the incident and the romantic sequence 
of Shon’s infatuation, the woman passed the 
tavern and was pointed out to Pierre. The 
Frenchman had not much excitableness in his 
nature ; but when he saw this beautiful woman 
with a touch of the Indian in her contour, his 
pale face flushed, and he showed his set teeth 
under his slight mustache. He watched her 
until she entered a shop, on the signboard of 
which was written — written since he had left a 
few months ago — Lucy Rives, Tobacconist. 

Shon had then entered the Saints’ Repose; and 
we know the rest. A couple of hours after this 
nervous episode, Pierre might have been seen 
standing in the shadow of the pines not far from 
the house at Ward’s Mistake, where, he had 
been told, Lucy Rives lived with an old Indian 
woman. He stood, scarcely moving, and smok- 
ing cigarettes, until the door opened. Shon came 
out and walked down the hillside to the town. 
Then Pierre went to the door, and without 
knocking, opened it, and entered. A woman 


284 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


started up from a seat where she was sewing, 
and turned toward him. As she did so, the 
work, Shon’s coat, dropped from her hands, her 
face paled, and her eyes grew big with fear. She 
leaned against a chair for support — this' man’s 
presence had weakened her so. She stood silent, 
save for a slight moan that broke from her lips, 
as the Frenchman lighted a cigarette coolly, and 
then said to an old Indian woman who sat upon 
the floor braiding a basket : 

“Get up, Ikni, and go away.” 

Ikni rose, came over, and peered into the face 
of the half-breed. Then she muttered : 

“I know you — I know you. The dead has 
come back again.” She caught his arm with 
her bony Angers as if to satisfy herself that he 
was flesh and blood, and shaking her head dole- 
fully, went from the room. When the door 
closed, behind her there was silence, broken only 
by an exclamation from the man. 

The other drew her hand across her eyes, and 
dropped it with a motion of despair. Then Pierre 
said, sharply: 

^^Bien 

“Frangois,” she replied, “you are alive.” 

“Yes, I am alive, Lucy Rives.” 

She shuddered, then grew still again and 
whispered : 

“Why did you let it he thought that you were 
drowned? Why? Oh, why?” she moaned. 

He raised his eyebrows slightly, and said, be- 
tween the puffs of smoke : 

“Ah, yes, my Lucy, why? It was so long 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


285 


ago. Let me see : so — so — ten years. Ten years 
is a long time to remember, eh?” 

He came toward her. She drew back; but 
her hand remained on the chair. He touched 
the plain gold ring on her finger, and said : 

“You still wear it. To think of that — so loyal 
for a woman ! How she remembers — holy 
Mother! ... But shall I not kiss you, yes, 
just once after eight years — my wife?” 

She breathed hard and drew back against the 
wall, dazed and frightened, and said : 

“Ho, no, do not come near me; do not speak 
to me — ah, please, stand back, for a moment, 
please!” 

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and con- 
tinued, with mock tenderness : 

“To think that things come round so! And 
here you have a home. But that is good. I am 
tired of much travel and life all alone. The 
prodigal goes not to the home, the home comes 
to the prodigal. ’ ’ He stretched up his arms as 
if with a feeling of content. 

“Do you — do you not know,” she said, “that 
— that — ” 

He interrupted her : _ 

“Do I not know, Lucy, that this is your 
home? Yes. But is it not all the same? I 
gave you a home ten years ago — to think, ten 
years ago! We quarreled one night, and I left 
you. Next morning my boat was found below 
the White Cascade — yes, but that was so stale a 
trick ! It was not worthy of Frangois Rives. He 
would do it so much better now ; but he was 


286 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


young, then; just a boy, and foolish. ‘Well, sit 
down, Lucy, it is a long story, and you have 
much to tell, how much— who knows?” 

She came slowly forward and said with a pain- 
ful effort: 

“You did a great wrong, Frangois. You have 
killed me. ’ ’ 

“Killed you, Lucy, my wdfe! Pardon ! Never 
in those days did you look so charming as now 
— never! But the great surprise of seeing your 
husband, it has made you shy, quite shy. There 
will be much time now for you to change all 
that. It is quite pleasant to think on, Lucy. . . 
You remember the song we used to sing on the 
Chaudiere at St. Antoine? See, I have not for- 
gotten it — 

“ ‘ Nos amants sont en guerre, 

Vole, mon coeur, vole. ’ ” 

He hummed the lines over and over, watching 
through his half-shut eyes the torture he was 
inflicting. 

‘^‘Oh, Mother of God,” she whispered, “have 
mercy! Can you not see, do you not know? I 
am not as you left me.” 

“Yes, my wdfe, you are just the same; not an 
hour older. I am glad that you have come to 
me. But how they will envy Pretty Pierre!” 

“Envy— Pretty Pierre,” she repeated, in dis- 
tress; “are you— Pretty— Pierre? Ah, I might 
have known, I might have known!” 

“Yes, and so! Is not Pretty Pierre as good a 
name as Frangois Rives? Is it not as good as 
Shon Me Gann?” 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


287 


“Oh, I see it all, I see it all now,” she mourn- 
fully said. “It was with you he quarreled, and 
about me. He would not tell me what it was. 
You know, then, that I am — that I am married 
— to him !” 

“Quite. I know all that; but it is no mar- 
riage.” He rose to his feet slowly, dropping the 
cigarette from his lips as he did so. “Yes,” he ~ 
continued, “and I know that you prefer Shon 
McGann to Pretty Pierre.” 

She spread c ut her hands appealingly. 

“But you ajc my wife, not his. Listen: do 
you know what I shall do? I will tell you in 
two hours. It is now eight o’clock. At ten 
o’clock Shon McGann will meet me at the 
Saints’ Kepose. Then you shall know. . . . 
Ah, it is a pity ! Shon was my good friend, but 
this spoils all that. Wine — it has danger ; cards 
— there is peril in that sport ; women — they make 
trouble most of all.” 

“O God,” she piteously said, “what did I do? 
There was no sin in me. I was your faithful 
wife, though you were cruel to me. You left 
me, cheated me, brought this upon me. It is 
you that has done this wickedness, not I.” She 
buried her face in her hands, falling on her knees 
beside the chair. 

He bent above her: 

“You loved the young avocat better, eight 
years ago.” 

She sprang to her feet. 

“Ah, now I understand,” she said; “that was 
why you quarreled with me ; v/hy you deserted 


288 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


me — you were not man enough to say what 
made you so much the — so wicked and hard, 
so — ” 

“Be thankful, Lucy, that I did not kill you 
then,” he interjected. 

“But it is a lie,” she cried; “a lie!” 

She went to the door and called the Indian 
woman. 

“Ikni,” she said. “He dares to say evil of 
Andre and me. Think — of Andre!” 

Ikni came to him, put her wrinkled face close 
to his, and said : 

“She was yours, only yours; but the spirits 
gave 5’’ou a devil. Andre, oh, oh, Andre ! The 
father of Andre was her father — ah, that makes 
your sulky eyes to open. Ikni knows how to 
speak. Ikni nursed them both. If you had 
waited you should have known. But you ran 
away like a wolf from a coal of fire; you 
shammed death like a fox ; you come back like 
the snake to crawl into the house and strike 
with poison tooth, when you should be with the 
worms in the ground. But Ikni knows — ^you 
shall be struck with poison too, the spirit of 
the Red Knife v/aits for you. Andre was her 
brother.” 

He pushed her aside savagely : 

“Be still!” he said; “get out — quick. Sacre 
— quick!” 

When they were alone again he continued 
with no anger in his tone : 

“So, Andre the avocat and you — that, eh? 
Well, you see how much trouble has come; and 


IN PIP I VALLEY. 


289 


now this other — a secret too! When were you 
married to Shon McGann?” 

“Last night,” she bitterly replied; “a priest 
came over from the Indian village.” 

“Last night,” he musingly repeated — “last 
night I lost two thousand dollars at the Little 
Goshen field. I did not play well last night; 
I was nervous. In ten years I had not lost 
so much at one game as I did last night. It 
was a punishment for playing too honest, or 
something; eh, what do you think, Lucy — 
or something, eh?” 

She said nothing, but rocked her body to and 
fro. 

“Why did you not make known the marriage 
with Shon?” 

“He was to have told it to-night,” she said. 

There was silence for a moment, then a thought 
flashed into his eyes, and he rejoined with a 
jarring laugh : 

“Well, I will play a game to-night, Lucy 
Rives ; such a game that Pretty Pierre will never 
be forgotten in the Pipi Valley; a beautiful 
game, just for two. And the other who will 
play — the wife of Prangois Rives shall see if she 
will wait; but she must be patient, more patient 
than her husband was ten years ago.” 

“What will you do? tell me, what will you 
do?” 

“I will play a game of cards — just one mag- 
nificent game ; - and the cards shall settle it. All 
shall be quite fair, as when you and I played in 


290 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


the little house by the Chaudiere — at first — be- 
fore I was a devil. ’ ’ 

Was this peculiar softness to his last toues 
assumed or real? She looked at him inquiringly; 
but he moved away to the window, and stood 
gazing do wn the hillside toward the town below. 
His eyes smarted. 

“I will die,” she said to herself in whispers — 
“I will die.” 

A minute passed, and then Pierre turned and 
said to her : 

“Lucy, he is coming up the hill. Listen. If 
you tell him that I have seen you, I will shoot 
him on sight, dead. You would save him, for 
a little, for an hour or two — or more? Well, do 
as I say ; for these things must be according to 
the rules of the game, and I myself will tell him 
all at the Saints’ Repose. He gave me the lie 
there, I will tell him the truth before them all. 
Will you do as I say?” 

She hesitated an instant, and then replied : 

“I shall not tell him.” 

“There is only one way, then,” he continued; 
“you must go at once from here into the woods 
behind there, and not see him at all. Then at 
ten o’clock you will come to the Saints’ Repose, 
if you choose, to know how the game has ended. ” 

She was trembling, moaning, no longer. A 
set look had come into her face ; her eyes were 
steady and hard. She quietly replied : 

“Yes, I shall be there.” 

He came to her, took her hand, and drew 
from her finger the wedding-ring which last 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


291 


night Shon Me Gann had placed there. She 
submitted passively. Then with an upward 
wave of his fingers, he spoke in a mocking 
lightness, but without any of the malice which 
had first appeared in his tones, words from an 
old French song : 

“I say no more, my lady — 

Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine! 

I say no more, my lady. 

As naught more can be said.” 

He opened the door, motioned to the Indian 
woman, and, in a few moments, the broken- 
hearted Lucy Rives and her companion were 
hidden in the pines ; and Pretty Pierre also dis- 
appeared into the shadow of the woods as Shon 
McGann appeared on the crest of the hill. 

The Irishman walked slowly to the door, and 
pausing, said to himself : 

“I couldn’t run the big risk, me darlin’, with- 
out seein’ you again, God help me! There’s 
danger ahead which little I’d care for if it 
wasn’t for you.” 

Then he stepped inside the house — the place 
was silent; he called, but no one answered; he 
threw open the doors of the rooms, but they were 
empty ; he went outside and called again, but no 
reply came, except the fiutter of a night-hawk’s 
wings and the cry of a whip-poor-will. He went 
back into the house and sat down with his head 
between his hands. So, for a moment, and then 
he raised his head, and said with a sad smile : 

“Faith, Shon, me boy, this takes the life out 


292 


PIERKE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


of you ! — the empty house where she ought to be, 
and the smile of her so swate, and the hand of 
her that falls on y’r shoulder like a dove on tlie 
blessed altar — gone, and lavin’ a chill on y’r 
heart like a touch of the dead. Sure, nivir a wan 
of me saw any that could stand wid her for good- 
ness, barrin’ the angel that kissed me good-by 
with one foot in the stirrup an’ the troopers be- 
hind me, now twelve years gone, in ould Done- 
gal, and that I’ll niver see again, she lyin’ 
where the hate of the world will vex the heart 
of her no more, and the masses gone up for her 
soul. Twice, twice in y’r life, Shon McGann, 
has the cup of God’s joy been at y’r lips, and is 
it both times that it’s to spill? — Pretty Pierre 
shoots straight and sudden, and maybe it’s aisy 
to see the end of it ; but as the just God is above 
us, I’ll give him the lie in his throat betimes for 
the word he said agin me darlin’. "What’s the 
avil thing that he has to say? What’s the divil’s 
proof he would bring? And where is she now? 
—where are you, Lucy? I know the proof I’ve 
got in me heart that the wreck of the world 
couldn’t shake, while that light, born of Heav- 
en, swims up to your eyes whin you look at 
me!” 

He rose to his feet again and walked to and 
fro ; he went once more to the doors ; he looked 
here and there through the growing dusk, but to 
no purpose. She had said that she would not go 
to her shop this night; but if not, then where 
could she have gone? — and Ikni, too? He felt 
there was more awry in his life than he cared to 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


293 


put into thought or speech. He picked up the 
sewing she had dropped and looked at it ^s one 
would regard a relic of the dead ; he lifted her 
handkerchief, kissed it, and put it in his breast. 
He took a revolver from his pocket and exam- 
ined it closely, looked round the room as if to 
fasten it in his memory, and then passed out, 
closing the door behind him. He walked down 
the hillside and went to her shop in the one street 
of the town, but she was not there, nor had the 
lad in charge seen her. 

Meanwhile, Pretty Pierre had made his way 
to the Saints’ Repose, and was" sitting among 
the miners indolently smoking. In vain he was 
asked to play cards. His one reply was, “No, 
pardon^ no! I play one game only to-night, 
the biggest game ever played in Pipi Valley.” 
In vain, also, was he asked to drink. He re- 
fused the hospitality, defying the danger that 
such lack of good-fellowship might bring forth. 
He hummed in patches to himself the words of 
a song that the brules were wont to sing when 
they hunted the buffalo ; 

*‘Voild! it is the sport to ride; 

Ah, ah the brave hunter ! 

To thrust the arrow in his hide, 

To send the bullet through his side— 

Id, the buffalo, yoZi 
Ah, ah the buffalo!” 

He nodded here and there as men entered ; but 
he did not stir from his seat. He smoked inces- 
santly, and his eyes faced the door of the bar- 


294 


PIERRE AND KIS PEOPLE. 


room that entered upon the street. There was 
no doubt in the minds of any present that the 
promised excitement would occur. Shon McGann 
was as fearless as he was gay. And Pipi Valley 
remembered the day in which he had twice 
risked his life to save two women from a burn- 
ing building — Lady Jane and another. And 
Lady Jane this evening was agitated, and once 
or twice furtively looked at something under the 
bar-counter; in fact, a close observer would 
have noticed anger or anxiety in the eyes of the 
daughter of Dick Waldron, the keeper of the 
Saints’ Repose; Pierre would certainly have 
seen it had he been looking that way. An un- 
usual influence was working upon the frequent- 
ers of the busy tavern. Planned, premeditated 
excitement was out of their line. Unexpected- 
ness was the salt of their existence. This thing 
had an air of system not in accord with the sud- 
denness of the Pipi mind. The half-breed was 
the only one entirely at his ease ; he was languid 
and nonchalant; the long lashes of his half- 
shut eyelids gave his face a pensive look. 
At last King Kinkley walked over to him, and 
said: 

“There’s an almighty mysteriousness about 
this event which isn’t joyful. Pretty Pierre. We 
want to see the muss cleared up, of course ; we 
want Shon McGann to act like a high-toned cit- 
izen, and there’s a general prejudice in favor of 
things bein’ on the flat of your palm, as it were. 
Now this thing hangs fire, and there’s a lack of 
animation about it, isn’t there?” 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


295 


To this, Pretty Pierre replied : 

“What can I do? This is not like other things ; 
one had to wait; great things take time. To 
shoot is easy ; but to shoot is not all, as you shall 
see if you have a little patience. Ah, my friend, 
where there is a woman, things are different. I 
throw a glass in your face, we shoot, some one 
dies, and there it is quite plain of reason ; you 
play a card which was dealt just now, I call 
you — something, and the swiftest finger does 
the trick ; but in such as this, one must wait for 
the sport.” 

It was at this point that Shon McGann en- 
tered, looked round, nodded to all, and then 
came forward to the table where Pretty Pierre 
sat. As the other took out his watch, Shon said 
firmly but quietly : 

“Pierre, I gave you the lie to-day concerning 
me wife, and I’m here, as I said I’d be, to stand 
by the word I passed then.” 

Pierre waved his fingers lightly toward the 
other, and slowly rose. Then he said in sharp 
tones : 

“Yes, Shon McGann, you gave me the lie. 
There is but one thing for that in Pipi Valley. 
You choked me; I would not take that from a 
saint of heaven ; but there was another thing to 
do first. Well, I have done it; I said I would 
bring proofs — I have them.” He paused, and 
now there might have been seen a shining moist- 
ure on his forehead, and his words came men- 
acingly from between his teeth, while the room 


296 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


became breathlessly still, save that in the silence 
a sleeping dog sighed heavily ; ‘ ‘ Shon McGann, ’ ’ 
he added, “you are living with my wife.^’ 

Twenty men drew in a sharp breath of ex- 
citement, and Shon came a step nearer the other, 
and said in a strange voice : 

‘ ‘ I — am — ^living — with — your — wife ? ’ ’ 

“As I say, with my wife, Lucy Rives. Fran- 
gois Rives was my name ten years ago. We 
quarreled, I left her, and I never saw her again 
until to-night. You went to see her two hours 
ago. You did not find her. Why? She was 
gone because her husband, Pierre, told her to 
go. You want a proof? You shall have it. 
Here is the wedding-ring you gave her last 
night.” 

He handed it over, and Shon saw inside it his 
own name and hers. 

“My God!” he said, “did she know? Tell 
me she did not know, Pierre?” 

“No, she did not know. I have truth to speak 
to-night. I was jealous, mad, and foolish, and 
I left her. My boat was found upset. They be- 
lieved I was drowned. Well, she waited until 
yesterday, and then she took you — but she 
was my wife; she is my wife — and so you 
see!” 

The Irishman was deadly pale. 

“It’s an avil heart y’ had in y’ then. Pretty 
Pierre, and it’s an avil day that brought this 
thing to pass, and there’s only wan way to the 
end of it.” 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


297 


‘‘Yes, that is true. There is only one way,” 
was the reply; “but what shall that way be? 
Some one must go : there must be no mistake. 
I have to propose. Here on this table we lay a 
revolver. We will give up these which we have 
in our pockets. Then we will play a game of 
euchre, and the winner of the game shall have 
the revolver. We will play for a life. That 
is fair, eh — that is fair?” he said to those 
around. 

King Kinkley, speaking for the rest, re- 
plied : 

“That’s about fair. It gives both a chance, 
and leaves only two when it’s over. While the 
woman lives, one of you is naturally in the way. 
Pierre left her in a way that isn’t handsome; 
but a wife’s a wife, and though Shon was all in 
the glum about the thing, and though the wo- 
man isn’t to be blamed either, there’s one too 
many of you, and there’s got to be a vacation 
for somebody. Isn’t that so?” 

The rest nodded assent. They had been so 
engaged that they did not see a woman enter 
the bar from behind, and crouch down beside 
Lady Jane, a woman whom the latter touched 
affectionately on the shoulder and whispered to 
once or twice, while she watched the prepara- 
tions for the game.- 

The two men sat down, Shon facing the bar 
and Pierre with his back to it. 

The game began, neither man showing a sign 
of nervousness, though Shon v/as very pale. The 
game was to finish for ten points. Men crowded 


298 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


about the tables silent but keenly excited ; cigars 
were chewed instead of smoked, and liquor was 
left undrunk. At the first deal Pierre made a 
march, securing two. At the next Shon made 
a point, and at the next also a march. The 
half-breed was playing a straight game. He 
could have stacked the cards, but he did not do 
so ; deft as he was he might have cheated even 
the vigilant eyes about him, but it was not so ; 
he played as squarely as a novice. At the third, 
at the fourth deal, he made a march ; at the 
fifth, sixth, and seventh deals, Shon made a 
march, a point, and a march. Both now had 
eight points. At the next deal both got a point, 
and both stood at nine ! 

ITow came the crucial play. 

During the progress of the game nothing had 
been heard save the sound of a knuckle on the 
table, the flip- flip of the pasteboard, or the rasp 
of a heel on the floor. There was a set smile 
on Shon’s face— a forgotten smile, for the rest of 
the face was stern and tragic. Pierre smoked 
cigarettes, pausing, while his opponent was 
shuffling and dealing, to light them. 

Behind the bar as the game proceeded the wo- 
man who knelt beside Lady Jane listened to every 
sound. Her eyes grew more agonized as the 
numbers, whispered to her by her companion, 
climbed to the fatal ten. 

The last deal was Shon’s; there was that 
much to his advantage. As he slowly dealt, 
the woman— Lucy Eives — rose to her feet be- 
hind Lady Jane. So absorbed were all that 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


299 


none saw her. Her eyes passed from Pierre 
to Shon, and stayed. 

When the cards were dealt, with but one point 
for either to gain, and so win and save his life, 
there was a slight pause before the two took 
them up. They did not look at one another ; but 
each glanced at the revolver, then at the men 
nearest them, and lastly, for an instant, at the 
cards themselves, with their pasteboard faces 
of life and death turned downward. As the 
players picked them up at last and spread them 
out fan-like. Lady Jane slipped something into 
the hand of Lucy Rives. 

Those who stood behind Shon McGann stared 
with anxious astonishment at his hand ; it con- 
tained only nine and ten spots. It was easy 
to see the direction of the sympathy of Pipi 
Valley. The Irishman’s face turned a slight 
shade paler, but he did not tremble or appear 
disturbed. 

Pierre played his biggest ca^rd and took the 
point. He coolly counted one, and said : 

“Game. I win.” 

The crowd drew back. Both rose to their feet. 
In the painful silence the half- breed’s hand was 
gently laid on the revolver. He lifted it, and 
paused slightly, his eyes fixed to the steady look 
in those of Shon McGann. He raised the re- 
volver again, till it v/as level with Shon’s fore- 
head, till it was even ivith his hair ! Then 
there was a shot, and some one fell, not 
Shon, but Pierre, saying, as they caught 
him : 


300 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


^^Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! From behind!’^ 

Instantly there was another shot, and some 
one crashed against the bottles in the bar. The 
other factor in the game, the wife, had shot at 
Pierre, and then sent a bullet through her own 
lungs. 

Shon stood for a moment as if he was turned 
to stone, and then his head dropped in his arms 
upon the table. He had seen both shots fired, 
but could not speak in time. 

Pierre was severely but not dangerously 
wounded in the neck. 

But the woman — ? They brought her out 
from behind the counter. She still breathed; 
but on her eyes was the film of coming death. 
She turned to where Shon sat. Her lips framed 
his name, but no voice came forth. Some one 
touched him on the shoulder. He looked up and 
caught her last glance. He came and stooped 
beside her ; but she had died with that one glance 
from him, bringing a faint smile to her lips. 
And the smile stayed when the life of her had 
fled — fled though the cloud over her eyes, from 
the tide beat of her pulse. It swept out from the 
smoke and reeking air into the open world, and 
beyond, into those untried paths where all must 
walk alone, and in what bitterness, known only 
to the Master of the World who sees these pit- 
eous things, and orders in what fashion distorted 
lives shall be made straight and wholesome in 
the Places of Re-adjustment. 

Shon stood silent above the dead body. 

One by one the miners went out quietly. 


IN PIPI VALLEY. 


301 


Presently Pierre nodded toward the door, and 
King Kinkley and another lifted him and car- 
ried him toward it. Before they passed into the 
street .he made them turn him so that he could 
see Shon. He waved his hand toward her that 
had been his wife, and said : 

“She should have shot but once and straight, 
Shon McGann, and then! — Eh, well!’’ 

The door closed, and Shon McGann was left 
alone with the dead. 


The Cipher. 


Hilton was staying his horse by a spring at 
Guidon Hill when he first saw her. She was 
gathering may-apples; her apron was full of 
them. He noticed that she did not stir until 
he rode almost upon her. Then she started, 
first without looking round, as does an animal, 
dropping her head slightly to one side, though 
not exactly appearing to listen. Suddenly she 
wheeled on him, and her big eyes captured him. 
The look bewildered him. She was a creature 
of singular fascination. Her face was expres- 
sive. Her eyes had wonderful light. She looked 
happy, yet grave withal; it was the gravity of 
an uncommon earnestness. She gazed through 
everything, and beyond. She was young — eigh' 
teen or so. 

Hilton raised his hat, and courteously called 
a good-morning at her. She did not reply by 
any word, but nodded quaintly, and blinked 
seriously and yet blithely On him. He was pre- 
paring to dismount. As he did so he paused, 
astonished that she did not speak at all. Her 
face did not have a familiar language; its vo- 
cabularj^ was its own. He slid from his horse, 
and, throwing his arm over its neck as it 
( 302 ) 


THE CIPHER. 


303 


stooped to the spring, looked at her more in- 
tently, bat respectfully too. She did not yet 
stir, but there came into her face a slight in- 
flection of confusion or perplexity. Again he 
raised his hat to her, and, smiling, wished her 
a good-morning. Even as he did so a thought 
sprung in him. Understanding gave place to 
wonder ; he interpreted the unusual look in her 
face. 

Instantly he made a sign to her. To that her 
face responded with a wonderful speech— of re- 
lief and recognition. The corners of her apron 
dropped from her Angers, and the yellow may- 
apples fell about her feet. She did not notice 
this. She answered his sign with another, rapid, 
graceful, and meaning. He left his horse and 
advanced to her, holding out his hand simply — 
for he was a simple and honest man. Her re- 
sponse to this was spontaneous. The warmth 
of her fingers invaded him. Her eyes were full 
of questioning. He gave a hearty sign of ad- 
miration. She flushed with pleasure, but made 
a naive, protesting gesture. 

She was deaf and dumb. 

Hilton had once a sister who was a mute. 
He knew that amazing primal gesture-language 
of the silent race, whom God has sent like one- 
winged birds into the world. He had watched 
in his sister just such looks of absolute nature 
as flashed from this girl. They were comrades 
on the instant; he reverential, gentle, protec- 
tive; she sanguine, candid, beautifully aborig- 
inal in the freshness of her cipher-thoughts. 


304 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


She saw the world naked, with a naked eye. 
She was utterly natural. She was the maker 
of exquisite, vital gesture-speech. 

She glided out from among the may-apples 
and the long, silken grass, to charm his horse 
with her hand. As she started to do so, he 
hastened to prevent her, but, utterly surprised, 
he saw the horse whinny to her check, and arch 
his neck under her white palm — it was very 
white. Then the animal’s chin sought her 
shoulder and stayed placid. He had never 
done so to any one before save Hilton. Once, 
indeed, he had kicked a stableman to death. 
He lifted his head and caught with playful 
shaking lips at her ear. Hilton smiled; and 
so, as we said, their comradeship began. 

He was a nev/ officer of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company at Fort Guidon. She was the daugh- 
ter of a ranchman. She had been educated by 
Father Corraine, the Jesuit missionary, Prot- 
estant though she was. He had learned the 
sign-language while assistant-priest in a Pari- 
sian chapel for mutes. He taught her this 
gesture- tongue, which she, taking, rendered di- 
vine; and, with this, she learned to read and 
write. 

Her name was Ida. 

Ida was faultless. Hilton was not; but no 
man is. To her, however, he was the best that 
man can be. He was unselfish and altogether 
honest, and that is much for a man. 

When Pierre came to know of their friendship 
he shook his head doubtfully. One day he was 


THE CIPHER. 


305 


sitting on the hot side of a pine near his moun- 
tain hut, soaking in the sun. He saw them 
passing below him, along the edge of the hill 
across the ravine. He said to some one behind 
him in the shade, who was looking also — “What 
will be the end of that, eh?” 

And the some one replied : 

“Faith, what the Serpent in tho Wilderness 
couldn’t cure.” 

“You think he’ll play with her?” 

“I think he’ll do it without wishin’ or will- 
in’, maybe. It’ll be a case of a kiss and ride 
away.” 

There was silence. Soon Pierre pointed down 
again. She stood upon a green mound with a 
cool hedge of rock behind her, her feet on the 
margin of solid sunlight, her forehead bared. 
Her hair sprinkled round her as she gently 
threw back her head. Her face was full on 
Hilton. She was telling him something. Her 
gestures were rhythmical, and admirably bal- 
anced. Because they were continuous or only 
regularly broken, it was clear she was telling 
him a story. Hilton gravely, delightedly, nodded 
response now and then, or raised his eyebrows 
in fascinated surprise. Pierre, watching, was 
only aware of vague impressions — not any dis- 
tinct outline of the tale. At last he guessed it 
as a perfect pastoral — birds, reaping, deer, winds, 
sundials, cattle, shepherds, hunting. To Hilton 
it was a new revelation. She was telling him 
things she had thought, she was recalling her 
life. 


306 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Toward the last, she said in gesture: — ‘‘You 
can forget the wiuter, but not the spring. You 
like to remember the spring. It is the begin- 
ning. When the daisy first peeps, when the 
tall young deer first stands upon its feet, when 
the first egg is seen in the oriole’s nest, when 
the sap first sweats from the tree, when you 
first look into the eye of your friend — these you 
want to remember. . . . ” 

She paused upon this gesture — a light touch 
upon the forehead, then the hands stretched 
out, palms upward, with coaxing fingers. She 
seemed lost in it. Her eyes rippled, her lips 
pressed slightly, a delicate wine crept through 
her cheek, and tenderness wimpled all. Her 
soft breast rose modestly to the cool texture of 
her dress. Hilton felt his blood bound joyfully; 
he had the wish of instant possession. But yet 
he could not stir, she held him so ; for a change 
immediately passed upon her. She glided slow- 
ly from that almost statue-like repose into an- 
other gesture. Her eyes drew up from his, and 
looked away to plumbless distance, all glowing 
and child-like, and the new ciphers slowly said: 

“But the spring dies awa3\ We can only see 
a thing born once. And it maj' be ours, yet not 
ours. I have sighted the perfect Sharon- flower, 
far up on Guidon, yet it was not mine; it was 
too distant ; I could not reach it. I have seen 
the silver bullfinch floating along the canon. I 
called to it, and it came singing; and it was 
mine, yet I could not hear its song, and I let 
it go; it could not be happy so with me. . . . 


THE CIPHER. 


307 


I stand at the gate of a great city, and see all, 
and feel the great shuttles of sounds, the roar 
and clack of wheels, the horses’ hoofs striking 
the ground, the hammer of bells; all: and yet 
it is not mine; it is far far away from me. It 
is one world, mine is another; and sometimes 
it is lonely and the best things are not for me. 
But I have seen them, and it is pleasant to re- 
member, and nothing can take from us the hour 
when things were born, when we saw the spring 
— nothing — never! ” 

Her manner of speech, as this went on, be- 
came exquisite in fineness, slower, and more 
dream-like, until, with downward protesting 
motions of the hand, she said that — “nothing 
—never!” Then a great sigh surged up her 
throat, her lips parted slightly, showing the 
warm moist whiteness of her teeth, her hands 
falling lightly, drew together and folded in front 
of her. She stood still. 

Pierre had watched this scene intently, his 
chin in his hands, his elbows on his knees. 
Presently he drew himself up, ran a finger 
meditatively along his lip, and said to him- 
self: 

“It is perfect. She is carved from the core 
of nature. But this thing has danger for her 
. . . well! . . . ah!” 

A change in the scene before him caused this 
last expression of surprise. 

Hilton, rousing from the enchanting panto- 
mime, took a step toward her; but she raised 
her hand pleadingly, restrain! ngly, and he 


308 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


paused. With his eyes he asked her mutely 
why. She did not answer, but, all at once 
transformed into a thing of abundant spright- 
liness, ran down the hillside, tossing up her 
arms gayly. Yet her face was not all bril- 
liance. Tears hung at her eyes. But Hilton 
did not see these. He did not run, but walked 
quickly, following her; and his face had a de- 
termined look. Immediately, a man rose up 
from behind a rock on the same side of the 
ravine, and shook clinched fists after the de- 
parting figures; then stood gesticulating angrily 
to himself, until, chancing to look up, he sighted 
Pierre, and straightway dived into the under- 
brush. Pierre rose to his feet, and said slowly : 
“Hilton, there may be trouble for you also. It 
is a tangled world. 

Toward evening Pierre sauntered to the house 
of Ida’s father. Light of footstep, he came upon 
the girl suddenly. They had always been friends 
since the day when, at uncommon risk, he res- 
cued her dog from a freshet on the Wild Moose 
River. She was sitting utterly still, her hands 
folded in her lap. He struck his foot smartly 
on the ground. She felt the vibration, and 
looked up. He doffed his hat, and she held 
out her hand. He smiled and took it, and, as 
it lay in his, looked at it for a moment mus- 
ingly. She drew it back slowly. He was then 
thinking that it was the most intelligent hand 
he had ever seen. ... He determined to play 
a bold and surprising game. He had learned 
from her the alphabet of the fingers — that 


THE CIPHER. 


309 


is, how to spell words. He knew little gest- 
ure-language. He, therefore, spelled slowly: 

“Hawley is angry, because you love Hilton.’’ 
The statement was so matter-of-fact, so sudden, 
that the girl had no chance. She flushed and 
then paled. She shook her head firmly, how- 
ever, and her fingers slowly framed the reply : 

“You guess too much. Foolish things come 
to the idle.” 

“I saw you this afternoon,” he silently urged. 

Her fingers trembled slightly. “There was 
nothing to see.” She kn^w he could not have 
read her gestures. “I was telling a story.” 

“You ran from him — why?” His question- 
ing was cruel that he might in the end be 
kind. 

“The child runs from its shadow, the bird 
from its nest, the fish jumps from the water — 
that is nothing.” She had recovered somewhat. 

But he: “The shadow follows the child, the 
bird comes back to its nest, the fish cannot live 
beyond the water. But it is sad when the child, 
in running, rushes into darkness, and loses its 
shadow; when the nest falls from the tree; and 
the hawk catches the happy fish. . . . Hawley 
saw you also.” 

Hawley, like Ida, was deaf and dumb. He 
lived over the mountains, but came often. It 
had been understood that, one day, she should 
marry him. It seemed fitting. She had said 
neither yes nor no. And now? 

A quick tremor of trouble trailed over her 
face, then it became very still. Her eyes were 


310 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


bent upon the ground steadily. Presently a bird 
hopped near, its head coquetting at her. She ran 
her hand gently along the grass toward it. The 
bird tripped on it. She lifted it to her chin, at 
which it pecked tenderly. Pierre watched her 
keenly — admiring, pitying. He wished to serve 
her. At last, with a kiss upon its head, she gave 
it a light toss into the air, and it soared, lark- 
like, straight up, and hanging over her head, 
sang the day into the evening. Her eyes fol- 
lowed it. She could feel that it was singing. 
She smiled and lifted a finger lightly toward it. 
Then she spelled to Pierre this : 

“It is singing to me. We imperfect things 
love each other.” 

“And what about loving Hawley, then?” 
Pierre persisted. She did not reply, but a 
strange look came upon her, and in the pause 
Hilton came from the house and stood beside 
them. At this, Pierre lighted a cigarette, and 
with a good-natured nod to Hilton, walked 
away. 

Hilton stooped over her, pale and eager. 
“Ida,” he gestured, “will you answer me 
now? Will you be my wife?” She drew 
herself together with a little shiver. “No,” 
was her steady reply. She ruled her face into 
stillness, so that it showed nothing of what 
she felt. She came to her feet wearily, and 
drawing down a cool flowering branch of 
chestnut, pressed it to her cheek. 

“You do not love me?” he asked nervously. 

“I am going to marry Luke Hawley,” was 


THE CIPHER. 


311 


her slow answer. She spelled the words. She 
used no gesture to that. The fact looked ter- 
ribly hard and inflexible so. Hilton was not 
a vain man, and he believed he was not loved. 
His heart crowded to his throat. 

“Please go away, now,^^ she begged with an 
anxious gesture. While the hand was extended, 
he reached and brought it to his lips, then 
quickly kissed her on the forehead and walked 
away. She stood trembling, and as the fingers 
of one hand hung at her side, they spelled me- 
chanically these words : 

“It would spoil his life. I am only a mute 
— a dummy! ” 

As she stood so, she felt the approach of some 
one. She did not turn instantly, but with the 
aboriginal instinct, listened, as it were, with her 
body; but presently faced about — to Hawley. 
He was red with anger. He had seen Hilton 
kiss her. He caught her smartly by the arm, 
but, awed by the great calmness of her face, 
dropped it, and fell into a fit of sullenness. She 
spoke to him: he did not reply. She touched 
his arm: he still was gloomy. All at once the 
full price of her sacrifice rushed upon her, and 
overpowered her. She had no help at her crit- 
ical hour, not even from this man she had in- 
tended to bless. There came a swift revulsion, 
all passions stormed in her at once. Despair 
was the resultant of these forces. She swerved 
from him immediately, and ran hard toward the 
high-banked river! 

Hawley did not follow her at once: he did not 


312 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


guess her purpose. • She had almost reached the 
leaping-place, when Pierre shot from the trees 
and seized her. The impulse of this was so 
strong, that they slipped, and quivered on the 
precipitous edge: but Pierre righted then, and 
presently they were safe. 

Pierre held her hard by both wrists for a mo- 
ment. Then, drawing her away, he loosed her, 
and spelled these words slowly : 

‘‘I understand. But you are wrong. Hawley 
is not the man. You must come with me. It 
is foolish to die.” 

The riot of her feelings, her momentary de- 
spair, were gone. It was even pleasant to be 
mastered by Pierre’s firmness. She was pas- 
sive. Mechanically she went with him. Haw- 
ley approached. She looked at Pierre. Then 
she turned on the other. “Yours is not the 
best love,” she signed to him; “it does not 
trust; it is selfish.” And she moved on. 

But, an hour later, Hilton caught her to 
his bosom, and kissed her full on the lips. 

. . . And his right to do so continues to 
this day. 


A Tragedy of Nobodies. 


At' Fort Latrobe sentiment was not of the 
most refined kind. Local customs were pro- 
nounced and crude in outline; language was 
often highly colored, and action was occasionally 
accentuated by a pistol shot. For the first few 
months of its life the place was honored by the 
presence of neither wife, nor sister, nor mother. 
Yet women li\red there. 

When some men did bring wives and children, 
it was noticed that the girl Blanche was seldom 
seen in the streets. And, however it was, there 
grew among the men a faint respect for her. 
They did not talk of it to each other, but it ex- 
isted. It was known that Blanche resented even 
the most casual notice from those men who had 
wives and homes. She gave the impression that 
she had a remnant of conscience. 

“Go home,” she said to Harry Delong, who 
asked her to drink with him on New Year’s Day. 
“Go home, and thank God that you’ve got a 
home — and wife.” 

After Jacques, the long-time friend of Pretty 
Pierre, came to Fort Latrobe, with his sulky eye 
and scrupulously neat attire, Blanche appeared 
to withdraw still more from the public gaze, 

( 313 ) 


314 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


though no one saw any connection between these 
events. The girl also became fastidious in her 
dress, and lost all her former dash and smart 
aggression of manner. She shrank from the 
women of her class, for which, as might be ex- 
pected, she was duly reviled. But the foxes 
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
nor has it been written that a woman may not 
close her ears, and bury herself in darkness, and 
travel alone in the desert with her people — those 
ghosts of herself, whose name is legion, and 
whose slow white fingers mock more than the 
world dare at its worst. 

Suddenly, she was found behind the bar of 
Weir’s Tavern at Cedar Point, the resort most 
frequented by Jacques. Word went about 
among the men that Blanche was taking a turn 
at religion, or, otherwise, reformation. Soldier 
Joe was something skeptical on this point from 
the fact that she had developed a very uncertain 
temper. This appeared especially noticeable in 
her treatment of Jacques. She made him the 
target for her sharpest sarcasm. Though a pe- 
culiar glow came to his eyes at times, he was 
never roused from his exasperating coolness. 
When her shafts were unusually direct and 
biting, and the temptation to resent was keen, 
he merely shrugged his shoulders, almost gently, 
and said: ‘‘Eh, such women!” 

Nevertheless, there were men at Fort Latrobe 
who prophesied trouble, for they knew there was 
a deep strain of malice in the French half-breed 
which could be the more deadly because of its 


A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES. 


315 


rare use. He was not easily moved, he viewed 
life from the heights of a philosophy which 
could separate the petty from the prodigious. 
His reputation was not wholly disquieting; he 
was of the goats, he had sometimes been found 
with the sheep, he preferred to be numbered 
with the transgressors. Like Pierre, his one 
passion was gambling. There were legends that 
once or twice in his life he had had another 
passion, but that some Gorgon drew out his 
heart-strings painfully, one by one, and left him 
inhabited by a pale spirit now called Irony, now 
Indifference — under either name a fret and an 
anger to women. 

At last Blanche’s attacks on Jacques called 
out anxious protests from men like rollicking 
Soldier Joe, who said to her one night: 

“Blanche, there’s a devil in Jacques. Some 
day you’ll startle him, and then he’ll shoot you 
as cool as he empties the pockets of Freddy Tarl- 
ton over there.” 

And Blanche replied : 

“When he does that, what will you do, Joe?” 

“Do? Do?” and the man stroked his beard 
softly, “Why, give him ditto — cold.” 

“Well, then, there’s nothing to row about, is 
there?” 

And Soldier Joe was not on the instant clever 
enough to answer her sophistry; but when she 
left him and he had thought a while, he said, 
convincingly : 

‘ ‘But where would you be then, Blanche? . . . 
That’s the point.” 


316 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


One thing was known and certain : Blanche 
was earning her living by honest, if not high- 
class, labor. Weir the tavern-keeper said she 
was “worth hundreds” to him. But she grew 
pale, her eyes became peculiarly brilliant, her 
voice took a lower key, and lost a kind of hoarse- 
ness it had in the past. Men came in at times 
merely to have a joke at her expense, having 
heard of her new life; but they failed to enjoy 
their own attempts at humor. Women of her 
class came also, some with half-uncerta,in jibes, 
some with a curious wistfulness, and a few with 
scornful oaths; but the jibes and oaths were only 
for a time. It became known that she had paid 
the coach fare of Miss Dido (as she was called) 
to the hospital at Wapiti, and had raised a sub- 
scription for her maintenance there, heading it 
herself with a liberal sum ! Then the atmosphere 
round her became less trying; yet her temper 
remained changeable, and had it not been that 
she was good-looking and witty, her position 
might have been insecure. As it was, she ruled 
in a neutral territory where she was the only 
woman. 

One night, after an inclement remark to 
J acques, in the card-room, Blanche came back 
to the bar, and not noticing that, while she was 
gone, Soldier Joe had entered and laid himself 
down on a bench in a corner, she threw her head 
passionately forward on her arms as they rested 
on the counter, and cried : 

“0 my God! my God!” 

Soldier Joe lay still as if sleeping, and when 


A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES. 


317 


Blanche was called away again he rose, stole 
out, went down to Freddy Tarlton’s office, and 
offered to bet Freddy two to one that Blanche 
wouldn’t live a year. Joe’s experience of women 
was limited. He had in his mind the case of a 
girl who had accidentally smothered her child ; 
and so he said : 

“Blanche has something on her mind that’s 
killing her, Freddy. When trouble fixes on her 
sort it kills swift and sure. They’ve nothing to 
live for but life, and it isn’t good enough, you 
see, for — for — ” Joe paused to find out where 
his philosophy was taking him. 

Freddy Tarlton finished the sentence for him 
— For an inner sorrow is a consuming fire.' ’’ 

Fort Latrobe soon had an unexpected oppor- 
tunity to study Soldier Joe’s theory. One night 
Jacques did not appear at Weir’s Tavern as he 
had engaged to do, and Soldier Joe and another 
went across the frozen river to his logrhut to 
seek him. They found him by a handful of fire 
breathing heavily and nearly unconscious. One 
of the sudden and frequently fatal colds of the 
mountains had fastened on him, and he had be- 
gun a war for life. Joe started back at once for 
liquor and a doctor, leaving his comrade to watch 
by the sick man. He could not understand why 
Blanche should stagger and grow white when he 
told her; nor why she insisted on taking the 
liquor herself. He did not yet guess the truth. 

The next day all Fort Latrobe knew that 
Blanche was nursing Jacques, on what was 
thought to be his no-return journey. The doctor 


318 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


said it was a dangerous case, and he held out 
little hope. Nursing might bring him through, 
but the chance was very slight. Blanche only 
occasionally left the sick man’s bedside, to be 
relieved by Soldier Joe and Freddy Tarltou. It 
dawned on Joe at last — it had dawned on Freddy 
before — what Blanche meant by the heart- 
breaking words uttered that night in Weir’s 
Tavern. Down through the crust of this wo- 
man’s heart had gone something both joyful and 
painful. Whatever it was, it made Blanche a 
saving nurse, a good apothecary ; for, one night 
the doctor pronounced Jacques out of danger, 
and said that a few days would bring him round 
if he was careful. 

Now, for the first time, Jacques fully compre- 
hended all Blanche had done for him, though he 
had ceased to wonder at her changed attitude to 
him. Through his suffering and his delirium 
had come the understanding of it When, after 
the crisis, the doctor turned away from the bed, 
Jacques looked steadily into Blanche’s eyes, and 
she flushed, and wiped the wet from his brow 
with her handkerchief. He took the handker- 
chief from her fingers gently before Soldier Joe 
came over to the bed. 

The doctor had insisted that Blanche should 
go to Weir’s Tavern and get the night’s rest, 
needed so much, and Joe now pressed her to 
keep her promise. Jacques added an urging 
word, and after a time she started. Joe had 
forgotten to tell her that a new road had been 
made on the ice since she had crossed, and that 


A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES. 


319 


the old road was dangerous. Wandering with 
her thoughts she did not notice the spruce bushes 
set up for signal, until she had stepped on a thin 
piece of ice. It bent beneath her. She slipped : 
there was a sudden sinking, a sharp cry, then 
another, piercing and hopeless — and it was the 
one word — “Jacques!” Then the night was 
silent as before. But some one had heard the 
cry. Freddy Tarlton was crossing the ice also, 
and that desolating Jacques ! had reached his 
ears. When he found her he saw that she had 
been taken and the other left. But that other, 
asleep in his bed at the sacred moment when 
she parted, suddenly waked, and said to Soldier 
Joe: 

“Bid you speak, Joe? Did you call me?” 

But Joe, who had been playing cards with 
himself, replied: 

“I haven’t said a word.” 

And Jacques then added: 

“Perhaps I dream — perhaps.” 

On the advice of the doctor and Freddy Tarl- 
ton, .the bad news was kept from Jacques. 
When she did not come the next day, Joe told 
him that she couldn’t ; that he ought to remem- 
ber she had had no rest for weeks, and had 
earned a long rest. And Jacques said that 
was so. 

Weir began preparations for the funeral, but 
Freddy Tarlton took them out of his hands — 
Freddy Tarlton, who visited at the homes of 
Fort Latrobe. But he had the strength of his 
convictions, such as they were. He began by 


320 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


riding thirty miles and back to ask the young 
clergyman at Purple Hill to come and bury 
Blanche. She’d reformed and been baptized, 
Freddy said with a sad sort of hur lor. And the 
clergyman, when he knew all, said that he 
would come. Freddy was hardly prepared for 
what occurred when he got back. Men were 
waiting for him, anxious to know if the clergy- 
man was coming. They had raised a subscrip- 
tion to cover the cost of the funeral, and among 
them were men such as Harry Delong. 

‘“You fellows would better not mix yourselves 
up in this,” said Freddy. 

But Harry Delong replied quickly : 

“I am going to see the thing through.” 

And the others indorsed his words. 

When the clergyman came, and looked at the 
face of this Magdalene, he was struck by its 
comeliness and quiet. All else seemed to have 
been washed away. On her breast lay a knot 
of white roses “White roses in this winter 
desert. 

One man present, seeing the look of wonder 
in the clergyman’s eyes, said quietly : 

“My — my wife sent them. She brought the 
plant from Quebec. It has just bloomed. She 
knows all about 7ier.” 

That man was Harry Delong. The keeper of 
his home understood the other homeless wo- 
man. When she knew of Blanche’s death she 
said : 

“Poor girl, poor girl !” and then she had gently 
addecT: “Poor Jacques!” 


A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES. 


321 


And Jacques, as he sat in a chair by the fire 
four days after the tragedy, did not know that 
the clergyman was reading, over a grave on the 
hillside, words which are for the hearts of the 
quick as for the untenanted dead. 

To Jacques’ inquiries after Blanche, Soldier 
Joe had made changing and vague replies. At 
last he said that she was ill; then, that she was 
very ill, and again, that she was better, almighty 
better — now. The third day following the fun- 
eral, Jacques insisted that he would go and see 
her. The doctor at length decided he should be 
taken to Weir’s Tavern, where, they declared, 
they would tell him all. And they took him, 
and placed him by the fire in the card-room, a 
wasted figure, but fastidious in manner and 
scrupulously neat in person as of old. Then he 
asked for Blanche; but even now they had not 
the courage for it. The doctor nervously went 
out, as if to seek her; and Freddy Tarlton said; 

“Jacques, let us have a little game, just for 
quarters, you know. Eh?” 

The other replied without eagerness: 

^^Voila, one game, then!” 

They drew him to the table, but he played 
listlessly. His eyes shifted ever to the door. 
Luck was against him. Finally he pushed over 
a silver piece, and said : 

“The last. My money is all gone. Bien 
He lost that too. 

Just then the door opened, and a ranchman 
from Purple Hill entered. He looked carelessly 
round, and then said loudly : 


322 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


‘‘Say, Joe, so you’ve buried Blanche, have 
you ? Poor sinner ! ’ ’ 

There was a heavy silence. iN'o one replied. _ 
Jacques started to his feet, gazed around search- 
ingly, painfully, and presently gave a great 
gasp. His hands made a chafing motion in 
the air, and then blood showed on his lips 
and chin. He drew a handkerchief from his 
breast. 

Pardon ! , , , Pardon he faintly cried 
in apology, and put it to his mouth. 

Then he fell backward in the arms of Soldier 
Joe, wlio wiped a moisture from the lifeless 
cheek as he laid the body on a bed. 

In a corner of the stained handkerchief they 
found the word — 


Blanche, 


A Sanctuary of the Plains. 


Father Corraine stood with his chin in his 
hand and one arm supporting the other, think- 
ing deeply. His eyes were fixed on the northern 
horizon, along which the sun was casting oblique 
rays; for it was the beginning of the winter 
season. 

Where the prairie touched the sun it was re- 
sponsive and radiant ; but on either side of this 
red and golden tapestry there was a tawny glow 
and then a duskiness which, curving round to 
the north and east, became blue and cold — an 
impalpable but perceptible barrier rising from 
the earth, and shutting in Father Corraine like 
a prison wall. And this shadow crept stealthily 
on and invaded the whole circle, until, where 
the radiance had been, there was one continuous 
wall of gloom, rising arc upon arc to invasion of 
the zenith, and pierced only by some intrusive 
wandering stars. 

And still the priest stood there looking, until 
the darkness closed down on him with an almost 
tangible consistency. Then he appeared to re- 
member himself, and turned away \vith a gentle 
remonstrance of his head, and entered the hut 
behind him. He lighted a lamp, looked at it 

( 323 ) 


3U 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, 


doubtfully, blew it out, set it aside, and lighted 
a candle. This he set in the one window of the 
room which faced the north and west. 

He went to a door opening into the only other 
room in the hut, and with his hand on the latch 
looked thoughtfully and sorrowfully at some- 
thing in the corner of the room where he stood. 
He was evidently debating upon some matter— 
probably the removal of what was in the corner 
to the other room. If so, he finally decided to 
abandon the intention. He sat down in a chair, 
faced the candle, again dropped his chin upon 
his hand, and kept his eyes musingly on the 
light. He was silent and motionless a long time, 
then his lips moved, and he seemed to repeat 
something to himself in whispers. 

Presently he took a well-worn book from his 
pocket, and read aloud from it softly what 
seemed to be an office of his Church. His voice 
grew slightly louder as he continued, until, sud- 
denly, there ran through the words a deep sigh 
which did not come from himself. He raised 
his head quickly, started to his feet, and turning 
round, looked at that something in the corner. 
It took the form of a human figure, which raised 
itself on an elbow and said : 

“Water — water — for the love of God!” 

Father Corraine stood painfully staring at the 
figure for a moment, and then the words broke 
from him : 

“Not dead! not dead! wonderful!” 

Then he stepped quickly to a table, took there- 
from a pannikin of water, and kneeling, held it 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


325 


to the lips of the gasping figure, throwing his 
arm round its shoulder, and supporting its head 
on his breast. 

Again he spoke : 

‘ ‘ Alive ! alive ! Blessed be Heaven ! ’ ’ 

The hands of the figure seized the hand of the 
priest, which held the pannikin, and kissed it, 
saying faintly: 

“You are good to me. . . . But I must sleep 
— I must sleep — I am so tired; and I’ve — very 
far — to go — across the world.” 

This. was said very slowly, then the head thick 
with brown curls dropped again on the priest’s 
breast, heavy with sleep*. Father Corraine, 
flushing slightly at first, became now slightly 
pale, and his brow was a place of war between 
thankfulness and perplexity. But he said some- 
thing prayerfully, then closed his lips firmly, 
and gently laid the figure down, where it was 
immediately clothed about with slumber. Then 
he rose, and standing with his eyes bent upon 
the sleeper and his fingers clasping each other 
tightly before him said : 

“Poor girl ! So, she is alive. And now what 
will come of it?” 

He shook his gray head in doubt, and imme- 
diately began to prepare some simple food and 
refreshment for the sufferer when she should 
awake. In the midst of doing so he paused and 
repeated the words, 

“AncZ icliat ivill come of it Then he 
added: “There was no sign of pulse nor heart- 


326 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


beat when I found her. But life hides itself 
where man cannot reach it.” 

Having finished his task, he sat down, drew 
the book of holj" offices again from his bosom, 
and read it, whisperingly, for a time; then fell 
to musing, and, after a considerable time, knelt 
down as if in prayer. While he knelt, the girl, 
as if startled from her sleep by some inner shock, 
opened her eyes wide and looked at him, first 
with bewilderment, then with anxiety, then with 
wistful thankfulness. 

“Oh, I thought — I thought when I awoke be- 
fore that it was a woman. But it is the good 
Father Corraine — Corraine, yes, that was the 
name.” 

The priest’s clean-shaven face, long hair, and 
black cassock had, in her first moments of con- 
sciousness, deceived her. How a sharp pain 
brought a moan to her lips; and this drew the 
priest’s attention. He rose, and brought her 
some food and drink. 

“My daughter,” he said, “you must take 
these.” Something in her face touched his sen- 
sitive mind, and he said, solemnly: “You are 
alone with me and God, this hour. Be at peace. 
Eat.” 

Her eyes swam with instant tears. 

“I know — I am alone — with God,” she said. 
Again he gently urged the food upon her, and she 
took a little; but now and then she put her hand 
to her side as if in pain. And once, as she did 
so, she said : “I’ve far to go and the pain is bad. 
Did they take him away?” 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


327 


Father Corraine shook his head. 

“I do not know of whom you speak,” he re- 
plied. “When I went to my door this morning 
I found you lying there. I brought you in, and, 
finding no sign of life in you, sent Feather- 
foot, my Indian, to Fort Cypress for a trooper 
to come; for I feared that there had been ill 
done to you, somehow. This border-side is but 
a rough country. It is not always safe for a 
woman to travel alone.” 

The girl shuddered. 

“Father,” she said — “Father Corraine, I be- 
lieve you are?” (Here the priest bowed his 
head.) “I wish to tell you all, so that if ever 
any evil did come to me, if I should die without 
doin’ wilt’s in my heart to do, you would know; 
and tell Tiim if you ever saw him, how I remem- 
bered, and kept rememberin’ him always, till 
my heart got sick with waitin’, and I came to 
find him far across the seas.” 

“Tell me your tale, my child,” he patiently 
said. Her eyes were on the candle in the window 
questioningly. “It is for the trooper— to guide 
him,” the other remarked. “’Tis past time that 
he should be here. When you are able you can 
go with him to the Fort. You will be better 
cared for there, and will be among women.” 

“The man— the man who was kind to me— I 
wish I knew of him,” she said. 

“lam waiting for your storj", my child. Speak 
of your trouble, whether it be of the mind and 
body, or of the soul.” 

“You shall judge if it be of the soul,” she an- 


328 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


svvered. “I come from far away. I lived in 
old Donegal since the day that I was born there, 
and I had a lover, as brave and true a lad as 
ever trod the world. But sorrov»^ came. One 
night at Farcalladen Rise there was a crack of 
arms and a clatter of fleeing hoofs, and he that 
I loved came to me and said a quick word of 
partin’, and with a kiss — it’s burnin’ on my lips 
yet — askin’ pardon, father, for speech of this to 
you — and he was gone, an outlaw, to Australia. 
For a time word came from him. Then I was 
taken ill and couldn’t answer his letters, and a 
cousin of my own, who had tried to win my love, 
did a wicked thing. He wrote a letter to him 
and told him I was dyin’, and that there was no 
use of further words from him. And never again 
did word come to me from him. Buf*I waited, 
my heart sick with longin’ and full of hate for 
the memory of the man who, when struck with 
death, told me of the cruel deed he had done be- 
tween us two.” 

She paused, as she had to do several times 
during the recital, through weariness or pain; 
but, after a moment, proceeded. 

“One day, one beautiful day, when the flowers 
were like love to the eye, and the larks singin’ 
overhead, and my thoughts goin’ with them as 
they swam until they were lost in the sky, and 
every one of them a prayer for the lad livin’ yet, 
as I hoped, somewhere in God’s universe— there 
rode a gentleman down Farcalladen Rise. He 
stopped me as I walked, and said a kind good- 
day to me; and I knew when I looked into his 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


3*29 


face that he had word for me— the whisperin’ 
of some angel, I suppose — and I said to him as 
though he had asked me for it: ‘My name is 
Mary Callen, sir. ’ 

“At that he started, and the color came quick 
to his face; and he said: ‘I am Sir Duke Law- 
less. I come to look for Mary Callen’s grave. 
Is there a Mary Callen dead, and a Mary Callen 
livin’ and did both of them love a man that went 
from Farcalladen Rise one wild night long ago?’ 

“ ‘There’s but one Mary Callen,’ said I; ‘but 
the heart of me is dead, until I hear news that 
brings it to life again !’ 

“ ‘And no man calls you wife?’ he asked. 

“‘No man, Sir Duke Lawless,’ answered I. 
‘And no man ever could, save him that used to 
write me of you from the hea.rfc of Australia ; 
only there was no Sir to your name then. ’ 

“ ‘I’ve come to that since,’ said he. 

“ ‘Oh, tell me,’ I cried, with a quiverin’ at 
my heart, ‘tell me, is he livin’?’ 

“And he replied: ‘I left him in the Pipi Val- 
ley of the Rocky Mountains a year ago. ’ 

“ ‘A year ago!’ said I sadly. 

“ ‘I’m ashamed that I’ve been so long in 
cornin’ here,’ replied he; ‘ but, of course, he 
didn’t know that you were alive, and I had been 
parted from a lady for years — a lover’s quarrel 
— and I had to choose between courtin’ her 
again and marryin’ her, or cornin’ to Farcalla- 
deh Rise at once. Well, I went to the altar first.’ 

“ ‘Oh, sir, you’ve come with the speed of the 
wind, for now that I’ve news of him, it is only 


330 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


yesterday that he went away, not years agone. 
But tell me, does he ever think of me?’ I ques- 
tioned. 

“ ‘He thinks of you,’ he said, ‘as one for whom 
the masses for the holy dead are spoken ; but 
while I knew him, first and last, the memory of 
you was with him.’ 

“With that he got off his horse, and said: ‘I’ll 
walk with you to his father’s home. ’ 

“ ‘You’ll not do that,’ I replied; ‘for it’s level 
with the ground. God punish them that did it! 
and they’re lyin’ in the glen by the stream that 
he loved and galloped over many a time. ’ 

“ ‘They are dead — they are dead, then,’ said 
he, with his bridle swung loose on his arm and 
his hat off reverently. 

“ ‘Gone home to Heaven together,’ said I, 
‘one day and one hour, and a prayer on their 
lips for the lad ; and I closin’ their eyes at the 
last. And before they went they made me sit by 
them and sing a song that’s common here with 
us ; for many and many of the strength and pride 
of Farcalladen Rise have sailed the wide seas 
north and south, and otherwhere, and cornin’ 
back maybe and maybe not. ’ 

“ ‘Hark,’ he said, very gravely, ‘and I’ll tell 
you what it is, for I’ve heard him sing it, I 
know, in the worst days and the best days that 
ever we had, when luck was wicked and big 
against us and we starvin’ on the wallaby track; 
or when we found the turn in the lane to brighter 
days.’ 

“And then with me lookin’ at him full in the 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


331 


eyes, gentleman though he was — for comrade he 
had been with the man I loved — he said to me 
there, so finely and kindly, it ought to have 
brought the dead back from their graves to hear 
these words: 

“ ‘You’ll travel far and wide, dear, but you’ll come back 
again. 

You’ll come back to your father and your mother in 
the glen. 

Although we should be lyin’ ’neath the heather grasses 
. then — 

You’ll be cornin’ back, my darlin’ I 

“ ‘You’ll see the icebergs. sailin’ along the wintry foam. 

The white hair of the breakei's, and the wild swans as 
they roam ; 

But you’ll not forget the rowan beside your father’s 
home — 

You’ll be cornin’ back, my darlin’.’ ” 

Here the girl paused longer than usual, and 
the priest dropped his forehead in his hand 
sadly. 

“I’ve brought grief to your kind heart. Fa- 
ther,” she said. 

“No, no,” he replied, “not sorrow at all; but 
I was born on the Liffey side, though it’s forty 
years and more since I left it, and I’m an old 
man now. That song I knew well, and the truth 
and the heart of it too. ... I am listening.” 

“Well, together we went to the grave of the 
father and mother, and the place where the home 
had been, and for a long time he was silent, as 
though they who slept beneath the sod were his, 
and not another’s ; but at last he said : 


332 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“ ‘And what will you do? I don’t quite know 
where he is, though; when I last heard from 
him and his comrades, they were in the Pipi 
Valley.’ 

“My heart was full of joy; for though I saw 
how touched he was because of what he saw, it 
was all common to my sight, and I had grieved 
much, but had had little delight ; and I said : 

“ ‘There’s only one thing to be done. He can- 
not come back here, and I must go to him — that 
is,’ said I, ‘if you think he cares for me still 
— for my heart quakes at the thought that he 
might have changed. ’ 

“ ‘I know his heart,’ said he, ‘and you’ll find 
him, I doubt not, the same, though he buried 
you long ago in a lonely tomb — the tomb of a 
sweet remembrance, where the flowers are ever- 
lastin’.’ Then after more words he offered me 
money with which to go ; but I said to him that 
the love that couldn’t carry itself across the sea 
by the strength of the hands and the sweat of 
the brow was no love at all ; and that the harder 
was the road to him the gladder I’d be, so that 
it didn’t keep me too long, and brought me to 
him at last. 

“He looked me up and down very earnestly 
for a minute, and then he said : ‘ What is there 
under the roof of heaven like the love of an 
honest woman! It makes the world worth 
livin’ in.’ 

“ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘when love has hope, and a 
place to lay its head.’ 

“ ‘Take this,’ said he — and he drew from his 


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pocket his watch — ‘and carry it to him with tho 
regard of Duke Lawless, and this for yourself’ 
— fetching from his pocket a revolver and put- 
ting it into my hands; ‘for the prairies are but 
rough places after ail, and it’s better to be safe 
than — worried. . . . Never fear, though, but 
the prairies will bring back the finest of blooms 
to your cheek, if fair enough it is now, and flush 
his eye with pride of you ; and God be with you 
both, if a sinner may say that, and breakin’ no 
saint’s prerogative.’ And he mounted to ride 
away, havin’ shaken my hand like a brother; 
but he turned again before he went, and said ; 
‘Tell him and his comrades that I’ll shoulder my 
gun and join them before the world is a year 
older, if I can. For that land is God’s land, and 
its people are my people, and I care not who 
knows it, whatever here I be. ’ 

“I worked my way across the sea, and stayed 
a while in the East earning money to carry me 
over the land and into the Pipi Valley. I joined 
a party of emigrants that were goin’ westward, 
and traveled far with them. But they quarreled 
and separated, I goin’ with those that I liked 
best. One night, though, I took my horse and 
left; for I knew there was evil in the heart of a 
man who sought me continually, and the thing 
drove me mad. I rode until my horse could 
stumble no further, and then I took the saddle 
for a pillow and slept on the bare ground. And 
in the morning I got up and rode on, seein’ no 
house nor human being for many and many a 
mile. When everything seemed hopeless I came 


334 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


suddenly upon a camp. But I saw that there 
was only one man there, and I should have 
turned back, but that I was worn and ill, and, 
moreover, I had ridden almost upon him. But 
he was kind. He shared his food with me, and 
asked me where I was goin’. I told him, and 
also that I had quarreled with those of my party 
and had left them — nothing more. He seemed 
to wonder that I was goin’ to Pipi Valley; and 
when I had finished my tale he said : ‘ W ell, I 
must tell you that I am not good company for 
you. I have a name that doesn’t pass at par up 
here. To speak plain truth, troopers are looking 
for me, and — strange as it may be — for a crime 
which I didn’t commit. That is the foolishness 
of the law. But for this I’m making for the 
American border, beyond which, treaty or no 
treaty, a man gets refuge.’ 

“He was silent after that, lookin’ at me 
thoughtfully the while, but in a way that told 
me I might trust him, evil though he called him- 
self. At length he said: ‘I know a good priest. 
Father Corraine, who has a cabin sixty miles or 
more from here, and I’ll guide you to him, if so 
be you can trust a half-breed and a gambler, and 
one men call an outlaw. If not, I’m feared it’ll 
go hard with you; for the Cypress Hills are not 
easy travel, as I’ve known this many a year. 
And should you want a name to call me. Pretty 
Pierre will do, though my godfathers and god- 
mothers did different for me before they went 
to Heaven.’ And nothing said he irreverently. 
Father. ’ ’ 


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335 


Here the priest looked up and answered ; 

“Yes, yes, I know him well— an evil man, and 
yet he has suffered too. ... Well? well? my 
daughter?” 

“At that he took his pistol from his pocket 
and handed it. ‘Take that,’ he said. ‘It will 
make you safer with me, and I’ll ride ahead of 
you, and we shall reach there by sundown, I 
hope. ’ 

‘ ‘ And I would not take his pistol, but, shamed 
a little, showed him the one Sir Duke Lawless 
gave me. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘and, maybe, 
it’s better that I should carry mine, for, as I 
said, there are anxious gentlemen lookin’ for 
me, who wish to give me a quiet but dreary 
home. And see,’ he added, ‘if they should come 
you will be safe, for they sit in the judgment 
seat, and the statutes hang at their saddles, and 
I’ll say this for them, that a woman to them is 
as a saint of God out here where women and 
saints are few.’ 

“I do not speak as he spoke, for his words had 
a turn of French ; but I knew that, whatever he 
was, I should travel peaceably with him. Yet I 
saw that he would be runnin’ the risk of his own 
safety for me, and I told him that I could not 
have him do it ; but he talked me lightly down, 
and we started. We had gone but a little dis- 
tance, when there galloped over a ridge upon us 
two men of the pai*ty I had left, and one, I saw, 
was the man I hated ; and I cried out and told 
Pretty Pierre. He wheeled his horse, and held 
his pistol by him. They said that I should come 


336 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


with them, and they told a dreadful lie — that 1 
was a runaway wife; but Pierre answered them 
they lied. At this, one rode forward suddenly, 
and clutched me at my waist to drag me from 
. my horse. At this, Pierre’s pistol was thrust 
in his face, and Pierre bade him cease, which 
he did ; but the other came down with a pistol 
showin’, and Pierre, seein’ they were deter- 
mined, fired; and the man that clutched at me 
fell from his horse. Then the other drew off ; 
and Pierre got down, and stooped, and felt the 
man’s heart, and said to the other: ‘Take your 
friend away, for he is dead ; but drop that pistol 
of yours on the ground first.’ And the man did 
so ; and Pierre, as he looked at the dead man, 
added: ‘Why did he make me kill him?’ 

“Then the two tied the body to the horse, and 
the man rode away with it. We traveled on 
without speakin’ for a long time, and then I 
heard him say absently: ‘I am sick of that. 
When once you have played shuttlecock with 
human life, you have to play it to the end : that 
is the penalty. But a woman is a woman, and 
she must be protected.’ Then afterward he 
turned and asked me if I had friends in Pipi 
Valley; and because what he had done for me 
had worked upon me, I told him of the man I 
was goin’ to find. And he started in his saddle, 
and I could see by the way he twisted the mouth 
of his horse that I had stirred him.” 

Here the priest interposed : 

“What is the name of the man in Pipi Valley 
to whom you are going?” 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


337 


And the girl replied : 

“Ah, Father, have I not told you? — It is Shon 
McGann — of Farcalladen Rise.” 

At this. Father Corraine seemed suddenly 
troubled, and he looked strangely and sadly at 
her. But the girl’s eyes were fastened on the 
candle in the window, as if she saw her story in 
it ; and she continued : 

“A color spread upon him, and then left him 
pale; and he said: ‘To Shon McGann — you are 
going to Think of that — that!’ For an 
instant I thought a horrible smile played upon 
his face, and I grew frightened, and said to 
him: ‘You know him. You are not sorry that 
you are helping me? You and Shon McGann 
are not enemies?’ 

“After a moment the smile that struck me 
with dread passed, and he said, as he drew him- 
self up with a shake: ‘Shon McGann and I were 
good friends — as good as ever shared a blanket 
or split a loaf, though he was free of any evil, 
and I failed of any good, . . . Well, there 
came a change. We parted. We could meet no 
more; but who could have guessed thing? 
Yet, hear me — I am no enemy of Shon McGann, 
as let my deeds to you prove. ’ And he paused 
again, but added presently: ‘It’s better you 
should have come now than two years ago.’ 

“And I had a fear in my heart, and to this 
asked him why. ‘Because then he was a friend 
of mine,’ he said, ‘and ill always comes to those 
who are such.’ I was troubled at this, and 
asked him if Shon was in Pipi Valley yet. ‘I 


338 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


do not know,’ said he, ‘for I’ve traveled long 
and far from there ; still, while I do not wish to 
put doubt into your mind, I have a thought he 
may be gone. . . . He had a gay heart,’ he 
continued, ‘and we saw brave days together.’ 

“And though I questioned him, he told me 
little more, but became silent, scannin’ the plains 
as we rode ; but once or twice he looked at me 
in a strange fashion, and passed his hand across 
his forehead, and a gray look came upon his 
face. I asked him if he were not well. ‘ Only a 
kind of fightin’ within,’ he said; ‘such things 
soon pass, and it is well they do, or we should 
break to pieces.’ 

“And I said again that I wished not to bring 
him into danger. And he replied that these 
matters were accordin’ to Fate; that meri like 
him must go on when once the die is cast, for 
they cannot turn back. It seemed to me a bitter 
creed, and I v^-as sorry for him. Then for hours 
we kept an almost steady silence, and cornin’ at 
last to the top of a rise of land he pointed to a 
spot far off on the plains, and said that you, 
Father, lived there ; and that he would go with 
me still a little way, and then leave me. I urged 
him to go at once, but he would not, and we 
came down into the plains. He had not ridden 
far when he said sharply : 

“ ‘The Eiders of the Plains, those gentlemen 
who seek me, are there — see ! Hide on or stay, 
which you please. If you go you will reach the 
priest, if you stay here where I shall leave you, 
you will see me taken perhaps, and it may be 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


339 


fightin’ or death; but you will be safe with 
them. On the whole, it is best, perhaps, that 
you should ride away to the priest. They might 
not believe all that you told them, ridin’ with 
me as you are. ’ 

“But I think a sudden madness again came 
upon me. Rememberin’ what things were done 
by women for refugees in old Donegal, and that 
this man had risked his life for me, I swung my 
horse round nose and nose with his, and drew 
my revolver, and said that I should see whatever 
came to him. He prayed me not to do so wild a 
thing; but when I refused, and pushed on along 
with him, makin’ at an angle for some wooded 
hills, I saw that a smile proud and gentle played 
upon his face. We had almost reached the edge 
of the wood when a bullet whistled by us. At 
that the smile passed and a strange look came 
upon him, and he said to me : 

“ ‘This must end here. I think you guess I 
have no coward’s blood ; but I am sick to the 
teeth of fightin’. I do not wish to shock you, 
but I swear, unless you turn and ride away to 
the left toward the priest’s house, I shall save 
those fellows further trouble by killin’ myself 
here; and there,’ said he, ‘would be a pleasant 
place to die — at the feet of a woman who trusted 
you.’ 

“I knew by the look in his eye he would keep 
his word. 

“ ‘Oh, is this so?’ I said. 

“ ‘It is so,’ he replied, ‘and it shall be done 
quickly, for the courage to death is on me.’ 


340 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“ ‘But if I go, you will still try to escape?’ I 
said. And he answered that he would. Then 
I spoke a God-bless-you, at which he smiled and 
shook his head, and loanin’ over, touched my 
hand, and spoke low; ‘When you see Shon 
McGann, tell him what I did, and say that we 
are even now. Say also that you called Heaven 
to bless me.’ Then we swung away from each 
other, and the troopers followed after him, but 
let me go my way ; from which I guessed they 
saw I was a woman. And as I rode I heard 
shots, and turned to see ; but my horse stumbled 
on a hole and we fell together, and when I 
waked, I saw that the poor beast’s legs were 
broken. So I ended its misery, and made my 
way as best I could by the stars to your house ; 
but I turned sick and fainted at the door, and 
knew no more until this hour. ... You 
thought me dead. Father?” 

The priest bowed his head, and said : 

“These are strange, sad things, my child; and 
they shall seem stranger to you when you hear 
all.” 

“ When I hear all ! Ah, tell me. Father, do 
you know Shon McGann? Can you take me to 
him?” 

“I know him, but I do not know where he is. 
He left the Pipi Valley eighteen months ago, 
and I never saw him afterward; still I doubt 
not he is somewhere on the plains, and we shall 
find him — we shall find him, please Heaven.” 

“Is he a good lad. Father?” 

“He is brave, and he was always kind. He 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


341 


came to me before he left the valley — for he had 
trouble — and said to me: ‘Father, I am going 
away, and to what place is far from me to know, 
but wherever it is. I’ll live a life that’s fit for 
men, and not like a loafer on God’s world;’ and 
he gave me money for masses to be said — for the 
dead.” 

The girl put out her hand. 

“Hush! hush!” she said. “Let me think. 
Masses for the dead. . . . What dead? Hot 
for me; he thought me dead long ago.” 

“No; not for you,” was the slow reply. 

She noticed his hesitation, and said : 

“Speak. I know that there is sorrow on him. 
Some one — some one — he loved?” 

“Some one he loved,” was the reply. 

“And she died?” 

The priest bowed his head. 

“She was his wife — Shon’s wife?” and Mary 
Callen could not hide from her words the hurt 
she felt. 

“I married her to him, but yet she was not 
his wife.” 

There was a keen distress in the girl’s voice. 

“Father, tell me, tell me what you mean.” 

“Hush, and I will tell you all. He married 
her thinking, and she thinking, that she was a 
widowed woman. But her husband came back. 
A terrible thing happened. The woman believ- 
ing, at a painful time, that he who came back 
was about to take Shon’s life, fired at him, and 
wounded him, and then killed herself.” 

Mary Callen raised herself upon her elbow. 


343 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


and looked at the priest in piteous bewilder- 
ment. 

“It is dreadful,’’ she said. . . . “Poor wo- 
man! . . . And he had forgotten — forgotten 
me. I was dead to him, and am dead to him 
now. There’s nothing left but to draw the cold 
sheet of the grave over me. Better for me if 
I had never come — if I had never come, and 
instead were lyin’ by his father and mother 
beneath the rowan.” 

The priest took her wrist firmly in his. 

“These are not brave nor Christian words, 
from a brave and Christian girl. But I know 
that grief makes one’s words wild. Shon 
McGann shall be found. In the days when I 
saw him most and best, he talked of you as an 
angel gone, and he had never sought another 
woman had he known that you lived. The 
Mounted Police, the Riders of the Plains, travel 
far and wide. But now, there has come from 
the further West a new detachment to Fort Cy- 
press, and they may be able to help us. But 
listen. There is something more. The man 
Pretty Pierre, did he not speak puzzling words 
concerning himself and Shon McGann? And 
did he not say to you at the last that they were 
even noiv 9 W ell, can you not guess?” 

Mary Callen’s bosom heaved painfully and 
her eye stared so at the candle in the window 
that they seemed to grow one with the flame. 
At last a new look crept into them ; a thought 
made the lids close quickly as though it burned 
them. When they opened again they were full 


A SANCTUARY OP THE PLAINS. 


343 


of tears that shone in the shadow and dropped 
slowly on her cheeks and flowed on and on, 
quivering too in her throat. 

The priest said : 

“You understand, my child?’’ 

And she answered : 

“I understand. Pierre, the outlaw, was her 
husband.” 

Father Corraine rose and sat beside the table, 
his book of offices open before him. At length 
he said : 

“There is much that might be spoken; for the 
Church has words for every hour of man’s life, 
whatever it be: but there comes to me now a 
word to say, neither from prayer nor psalm, but 
from the songs of a country where good women 
are ; where, however poor the fireside, the loves 
beside it are born of the love of God, though the 
tongue be angry now and then, the foot stumble, 
and the hand quick at a blow. ’ ’ 

Then, with a soft, ringing voice, he repeated : 

“ 'New friends will clasp your hand, dear, new faces on 
you smile — 

You’ll bide with them and love them, but you’ll long 
for us the while ; 

For the word across the water, and the farewell by 
the stile— 

For the true heart’s here, my darlin’.’ ” 

Mary Callen’s tears flowed afresh at first : but 
joon after the voice ceased she closed her eyes 
and her sobs stopped, and Father Corraine sat 
down and became lost in thought as he watched 
ffie candle. Then there went a word among the 


344 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


spirits watching that he was not thinking of the 
candle, or of them that the candle was to light 
on the way, nor even of this girl near him, but 
of a summer forty years gone when he was a 
goodly youth, with the red on his lip and the 
light in his eye, and before him, leaning on a 
stile, was- a lass with — 

“ . ► . cheeks like the dawn of day. 

And all the good world swam in circles, eddy- 
ing ever inward until it streamed intensely and 
joyously through her eyes “blue as the fairy 
flax.” And he had carried the remembrance 
of this away into the world with him, but had 
never gone back again. He had traveled beyond 
the seas to live among savages and wear out his 
life in self-denial ; and now he had come to the 
evening of his life, a benignant figure in a lonely 
land. 

And as he sat here murmuring mechani- 
cally bits of an office, his heart and mind were 
v/ith a sacred and distant past. Yet the spir- 
its recorded both these things on their tab- 
lets, as though both were worthy of their re- 
membrance. 

He did not know that he kept repeating two 
sentences over and over to himself : 

“ ‘Quoniani ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium et a 
verbo aspero. 

Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te : ut custodiant 
te in omnibus viis tuis.’ ” 

These he said at first softly to himself, but 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


345 


unconsciously his voice became louder, so that 
the girl heard, and she said: 

“Father Corraine, what are those words? 
I do not understand them, but they sound 
comforting.’’ 

And he, waking from his dream, changed the 
Latin into English, and said : 

“ ‘For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunter, 

• and from the sharp sword. 

For he hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep 
thee in all thy ways?’ ” 

“The v.’-ords are good,” she said. He then 
told her he was going out, but that he should 
be within call, saying, at the same time, that 
some one would no doubt arrive from Fort 
Cypress soon: and he went from the house. 
Then the girl rose slowly, crept lamely to a 
chair and sat down. Outside, the priest paced 
up and down, stopping now and then, and list- 
ening as if for horses’ hoofs. At last he walked 
some distance away from the house, deeply lost 
in thought, and he did not notice that a man 
came slowly, heavily to the door of the hut, and 
opening it, entered. 

Mary Callen rose from her seat with a cry in 
which was timidity, pity, and something of hor- 
ror ; for it was Pretty Pierre. She recoiled, but 
seeing how he swayed with weakness, and that 
his clothes had blood upon them, she helped him 
to a chair. He looked up at her with an enig- 
matical smile, but he did not speak. 

“Oh,” she whispered, “you are wounded?” 


346 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


He nodded; but still he did not speak. Then 
his lips moved dryly. She brought him water. 
He drank deeply, and a sigh of relief escaped 
him. “You got here safely,” he now said. 
‘ T am glad of that — though you, too, are 
hurt.” 

She briefly told him how, and then he 
said: 

“Well, I suppose you know all of .me 
now?” 

“I know what happened in Pipi Valley,” she 
said, timidly and wearily. “Father Corraine 
told me.” 

“ Where is he?” 

When she had answered him, he said: 

“And you are willing to speak with me 
still?” 

“You saved me,” was her brief, convinc- 
ing reply. “Hew did you escape? Did you 
fight?” 

“Ho,” he said. “It is strange. I did not 
fight at all. As I said to you, I was sick of 
blood. These men were only doing their duty. 

I might have killed two or three of them, and 
have escaped, but to what good? When they 
shot my horse— my good Sacrament— and put 
a bullet into this shoulder, I crawled away 
still, and led them a dance, and doubled on 
them; and here I am.” 

“It is wonderful that they have not been 
here,” she said. 

“Yes, it is wonderful; but be very sure they 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


347 


will be, with that caadle in the window. Why 
is it there?” 

She told him. He lifted his brows in stoic 
irony, and said: 

“Well, we shall have an army of them soon.” 
He rose again to his feet. “I do not wish to 
die, and I always said that I would never go 
to prison. Do you understand?” 

“Yes,” she replied. She went immediately 
tc the window, took the candle from it, and put 
it behind an improvised shade. No sooner was 
this done than Father Corraine entered the 
room, and seeing the outlaw, said: “You 
have come here, Pierre?” And his face 
showed wonder and anxiety. 

“I have come, inon Pere, for sanctuary.” 

“For sanctuary! But, my son, if I vex not 
Heaven by calling you so, why” — he saw Pierre 
stagger slightly. “But you are wounded.” He 
put his arm round the other’s shoulder, and sup- 
ported him till he recovered himself. Then he 
set to work to bandage anew the wound, from 
which Pierre himself had not unsldllfully ex- 
tracted the bullet. While doing so, the outlaw 
said to him : 

“Father Corraine, I am hunted like a coyote 
for a crime I did not commit. But if I am ar- 
rested they will no doubt charge me with other 
things — ancient things. Well, I have said that 
I should never bo sent to jail, and I never 
shall; but I do not wish to die at this mo- 
ment, and I do not wish to fight. What is 
there left?” 


348 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“How do you come here, Pierre?” 

He lifted his eyes heavily to Mary Callen, 
and she told Father Corraine v/hat had been 
told her. 

When she had finished, Pierre added: 

“I am no coward, as you will witness, but, 
as I said, neither jail nor death do I wish. 
Well, if they should come here, and you said, 
Pierre is not /lere, even though I was in 
the next room, they would believe you, dd 
they would not search. Well, I ask such 
sanctuary.” 

The priest recoiled and raised his hand in 
protest. 

Then, after a moment, he said : 

“How do you deserve this? Do you know 
what you ask?” 

“My Father, I know it is immense, and I 
deserve nothing: and in return I can offer noth- 
ing, not even that I will repent. And I have 
done no good in the world; but still perhaps 
I am worth the saving, as may be seen in the 
end. As for you, well, you will do a little 
wrong so that the end will be right. So?” 

The priest’s eyes looked out long and sadly 
at the man from under his venerable brows, 
as though he would see through him and be- 
yond him to that end; and at last he spoke in 
a low, firm voice: 

“Pierre, you have been a bad man; but some- 
times you have been generous, and of a few good 
acts I know — ” 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


349 


“No, not good,” the other interrupted. “I 
ask this of your charity.” 

“There is the law, and my conscience.” 

“The law! the law!” and there was sharp 
satire in the half-breed’s voice. “What has 
it done in the West? Think, mon Pere ! Do 
you not know a hundred cases where the law 
has dealt foully? There was more justice be- 
fore we had law. Law — ” And he named 
over swiftly, scornfully, a score of names and 
incidents, to which Father Corraine listened in- 
tently. “But,” said Pierre, gently, at last, “but 
for your conscience, sir, that is greater than law. 
For you are a good man and a wise man; and 
you know that I shall pay my debts of every 
kind some sure day. That should satisfy your 
justice, but you are merciful for the moment, 
and you will spare until the time be come, until 
the corn is ripe in the ear. Why should I 
plead? It is foolish. Still, it is my whim, of 
which, perhaps, I shall be sorry to-morrow. 

. . . Hark!” he added, and then shrugged his 
shoulders and smiled. 

There were sounds of hoof - beats coming 
faintly to them. Father Corraine threw open 
the door of the other room of the hut, and 
said : 

“Go in there — Pierre. We shall see ... we 
shall see.” 

The outlaw looked at the priest, as if hesitat- 
ing; but, after, nodded meaningly to himself 
and entered the room and shut the door. The 


350 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


priest stood listening. When the hoof-beats 
stopped, he opened the door and went out. In 
the dark he could see that men were dis- 
mounting from their horses. He stood still 
and waited. Presently a trooper stepped for- 
ward and said warmly, yet brusquely, as be- 
came his office: 

“Father Corraine, we meet again!” 

The priest’s face was overswept by many ex- 
pressions, in which marvel and trouble were 
uppermost, while joy was in less distinct- 
ness. 

“Surely,” he said, “it is Shon McGann.” 

“Shon McGann, and no other. — I that laughed 
at the law for many a year — though, never break- 
ing it beyond repair — took your advice, Father 
Corraine, and here I am, holding that law” now 
as my bosom friend at the saddle’s pommel. 
Corporal Shon McGann, at your service.” 

They clasped hands, and the priest said: 

“You have come at my call from Fort Cy- 
press?” 

“Yes. But not these others. They are after 
a man that’s played ducks and drakes with the 
statutes — Heaven be merciful to him, I say. 
For there’s naught I treasure against him; the 
will of God bein’ in it all, with some doin’ of 
the Devil, too, maybe.” 

Pretty Pierre, standing with ear to the v/in- 
dow of the dark room, heard all this, and he 
pressed his upper lip hard with his forefinger, 
as if something disturbed him. 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


351 


Shon continued : 

“I’m glad I wasn’t sent after him as all these 
here know; for it’s little I’d like to clap irons 
on his wrists, or whistle him to come to me with 
a Winchester or a Navy. So I’m here on my 
business, and they’re here on theirs. Though 
we come together it’s because we met each other 
hereaway. They’ve a thought that, maybe, 
Pretty Pierre has taken refuge with you. 
They’ll little like to disturb you, I know. But 
with dead in your house, and you givin’ the 
word of truth — which none other could fall from 
your lips — they’ll go on their way to look else- 
where. ’ ’ 

The priest’s face was pinched, and there was 
a wrench at his heart. He turned to the others. 
A trooper stepped forward. 

“Father Corraine,” he said, “it is my duty 
to search your house; but not a foot v/ill I 
stretch across your threshold if you say No, 
and give the word that the man is not with 
you.” 

“Corporal McGann,” said the priest, “the 
woman whom I thought was dead did not die, 
as you shall see. There is no need for inquiry. 
But she will go with you to Fort Cypress. As 
for the other, you say that Father Corraine’s 
threshold is his own, and at his own com- 
mand. His home is now a sanctuary— for the 
afflicted.” He went toward the door. As he 
did so, Mary Callen, who had been listening in- 
side the room with shaking frame and bursting 
heart, dropped on her knees beside the table, her 


352 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


head in her arms. The door opened. “See,” 
said the priest, “a woman who is injured and 
suffering.” 

“Ah,” rejoined the trooper, “perhaps it is 
the woman who was riding with the half- 
breed. We found her dead horse.” 

The priest nodded. Shon McGann looked 
at the crouching figure by the table pityingly. 
As he looked he was stirred, he knew not why. 
And she, though she did not look, knew that 
his gaze was on her ; and all her will was spent 
in holding her eyes from his face, and from 
crying out to him. 

“And Pretty Pierre,” said the trooper, “is 
not here with her?” 

There was an unfathomable sadness in the 
priest’s eyes, as, with a slight motion of the 
hand toward the room, he said: 

“You see — he is not here.” 

The trooper and his men immediately 
mounted; but one of them, young Tim Kear- 
ney, slid from his horse, and came and dropped 
on his knee in front of the priest. 

“It’s many a day,” he said, “since before 
God or man I bent a knee — more shame to 
me for that, and for mad days gone; but I 
care not who knows it, I want a word of 
blessin’ from the man that’s been out here 
like a saint in the wilderness, with a heart 
like the Son o’ God.” 

The priest looked at the man at first as if 
scarce comprehending this act so familiar to 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


353 


him, then he slowly stretched out his hands, 
said some words in benediction, and made the 
sacred gesture. But his face had a strange 
and absent look, and he held the hand poised, 
even when the man had risen and mounted 
his horse. One by one the troopers rode 
through the faint belt of light that stretched 
from the door, and were lost in the darkness, 
the thud of their horses’ hoofs echoing behind 
them. But a change had come over Corporal 
Shon McGann. He looked at Father Corraine 
with concern and perplexity. He alone of those 
who were there had caught the unreal note in 
the proceedings. His eyes were bent on the 
darkness into which the men had gone, and 
his fingers toyed for an instant with his whistle; 
but he said a hard word of himself under his 
breath, and turned to meet Father Corraine’s 
hand upon his arm. 

“Shon McGann,” the priest said, “I have 
words to say to you concerning this poor 
girl.” 

“You wish to have her taken to the Fort, 
I suppose? What was she doing with Pretty 
Pierre?” 

“I wish her taken to her home.” 

“Where is her home. Father?” And his eyes 
were cast with trouble on the girl, though he 
could assign no cause for that. 

“Her home, Shon” — the priest’s voice was 
very gentle — “her home was where they sing 
such words as these of a wanderer : 


354 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


“ ‘You’ll hear the wild birds singin’ beneath a brighter 
sky, 

The roof-tree of your home, dear, it will be grand and 
high; 

But you’ll hunger for the hearthstone where a child 
you used to lie — 

You’ll be cornin’ back, my darlin’.’ ” 

During these words Shon’s face ran white, 
then red; and now he stepped inside the door 
like one in a dream, and her face was lifted to 
his as though he had called her. ‘ ‘Mary — Mary 
Callen!” he cried. His arms spread out, then 
dropped to his side, and he fell on his knees by 
the table facing her, and looked at her with love 
and horror warring in his face; for the remem- 
brance that she had been with Pierre was like 
the hand of the grave upon him. Moving not 
at all, she looked at him, a numb despondency 
in her face. 

Suddenly Shon’s look grew stern, and he was 
about to rise; but Father Corraine put a hand 
on his shoulder, and said ; 

“Stay where you are, man — on your knees. 
There is your place just now. Be not so quick 
to judge, and remember your own sins before 
you charge others without knowledge. Listen 
now to me.” 

And he spoke Mary C alien’s tale as he knew 
it, and as she had given it to him, not forget- 
ting to mention that she had been told the 
thing which had occurred in Pipi Valley. 

The heroic devotion of this woman, and Pretty 
Pierre’s act of friendship to her, together with 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


355 


the swift panorama of his past across the seas, 
awoke the whole man in Shon, as the stanch 
life that he had lately led rendered it possible. 
There was a noble look upon his face when he 
rose at the ending of the tale, and came to her, 
saying: 

“Mary, it is I who need forgiveness. Will 
you come now to the home you sought?’’ and he 
stretched his arms to her. . . . 

An hour after, as the three sat there, the 
door of the other room opened, and Pretty Pierre 
came out silently and was about to pass from 
the hut; but the priest put a hand on his arm, 
and said: 

“Where do you go, Pierre?” 

Pierre shrugged his shoulder slightly : 

“I do not know. Mon Dieu ! — that I have 
put this upon you ! — you that never spoke but 
the truth!” 

“You have made my sin of no avail,” the 
priest replied; and he motioned toward Shon 
McGann, who was now risen to his feet, Mary 
clinging to his arm. 

“Father Corraine,” said Shon, “it is my 
duty to arrest this man; but I cannot do it, 
would not do it, if he came and offered his 
arms for the steel. Fll take the wrong of this 
now, sir, and such shame as there is in that 
falsehood on my shoulders. And she here and 
I, and this man, too, I doubt not, will carry 
your sin — as you call it — to our graves, as a holy 
thing.” 


356 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


Father Corraiae shook his head sadly, aad 
made no reply, for his soul was heavy. He 
motioned them all to sit down. And they sat 
there by the light of a flickering candle, with the 
door bolted and a cassock hung across the win- 
dow, lest by any chance this uncommon thing 
should be seen. But the priest remained in a 
shadowed corner, with a little book in his hand, 
and he was long on his knees. And when morn- 
ing came they had neither slept nor changed the 
fashion of their watch, save for a moment now 
and then, when Pierre suffered from the pain of 
his v/ound, and silently passed up and down the 
little room. 

The morning was half gone when Shon Mc- 
Gann and Mary Callen stood beside their horses, 
ready to mount and go; for Mary had persisted 
that she could travel ; joy makes such marvelous 
healing. When the moment of parting came, 
Pierre w^as not there. Mary whispered to her 
lover concerning this. The priest went to the 
door of the hut and called him. He came out 
slowlj^. 

“Pierre,” said Shon, “there’s a word to be 
said between us that had best be spoken now, 
though it’s not aisy. It’s little you or I will 
care to meet again in this world. There’s been 
credit given and debts paid by both of us since 
the hour when we first met; and it needs think- 
ing to tell which is the debtor now, for deeds are 
hard to reckon; but, before God, I believe it’s 
meself;” and he turned and looked fondly at 
Mary Callen. 


A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS. 


357 


The other replied : 

“Shon JlcGann, I make no reckoning closely; 
but we will square all accounts here, as you say, 
and for the last time; for never again shall we 
meet, if it’s within my will or doing. But I 
say I am the debtor; and if I pay not here, 
there will come a time!” and he caught his 
shoulder as it shrunk in pain of his wound. 
He tapped the wound lightly, and said with 
irony: “This is my note of hand for my debt, 
Shon McGann. Eh, hien!^^ 

Then he tossed his fingers indolently toward 
Shon, and turning his eyes slowly to Mary 
Gallon, raised his hat in good-by. She put 
out her hand impulsively to him, but Pierre, 
shaking his head, looked away. Shon put his 
hand gently on her arm. “No, no,” he said 
in a whisper, “there can be no touch of hands 
between us.” 

And Pierre, looking up, added : 

“That is the truth. You go— home. I go- 
to hide. So — so. . .” 

And he turned and went into the hut. 

The others set their faces northward, and 
Father Corraine walked beside Mary Callen’s 
horse, talking quietly of their future life, and 
speaking, as he would never speak again, of 
days in that green land of their birth. At 
length, upon a dividing swell of the prairie, 
he paused to say farewell. 

Many times the two turned to see, and he was 
there, looking after them; his forehead bared 
to the clear inspiring wind, his gray hair 


358 


PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 


blown back, his hands clasped. Before de- 
scending the trough of a groat landwave, 
they turned for the last time, and saw him 
standing motionless, the one solitary being in 
all their wide horizon. 

But outside the line of vision there sat a man 
in a prairie hut, whose eyes traveled over the 
valley of blue sky stretching away beyond the 
morning, whose face was pale and cold. For 
hours he sat unmoving, and when, at last, some 
one gently touched him on the shoulder, he only 
shook his head, and went on thinking. 

He was busy with the grim ledger of his life. 


THE END. 



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but it 

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Carl L. Jensen’s Crtstal Pepsin Tablets will cure Dyspepsia and win pr^ 
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BURNETT 

- - - AT THE - - - 

CHICAGO EXPOSITION 


WHAT THE RESTAURATEURS AND CATERERS WHO ARE TO FEED 
THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE FAIR GROUNDS THINK OP 

BURNETT'S EXTRACTS: 


Chicago, April 2d, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co. 

Gentlanen : After careful tests and inves- 
tigation of the merits of your llavoring ex- 
tracts, we have^decided to give you the 
entire order for our use, in our working 
department as well as in all our creams and 
Ices, used in all of our restaurants in the 
buildings of the World’s Columbian Ex- 
position at Jackson Park. 

Very truly yours, 
WELLINGTON CATERING CO. 

By Albert S. Gage, President. 


Chicago, April 26th, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : After careful investigation we 
have decided that Burnett’s Flavoring Ex- 
tracts are the best. We shall use them ex- 
clusively in the cakes, ice creams and 
pastries served In Banquet Hall and at New 
England Clam Bake in the World’s Fair 
Grounds. 

N. E. WOOD, Manager, 

New England Clam Bake Building. 

F. K. McDON^VLD, Manager, 

Banquet Hall. 


Woman’s Building, > 

World’s Columbian Exposition, j 
Chicago, April 2l8t, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : We take pleasure in stating 
that Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts will 
be used exclusively in the Garden Cafe, 
Woman’s Building, World’s Columbian Ex- 
position, during the period of the World’s 
Fair. 

RILEY & LAWFORD. 


Columbia Casino Co. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & co.. 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen: We take pleasure in stating 
that Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts Vviil be 
used exclusively in the cuisine of the 
Columbia Casino Restaurant, at the 
World’s Fair Grounds, as it is our aim to 
use uothing but the best. Respectfully, 

H. A. WINTER, Manager. 


.J 


Transportation Building, 
WoRi.D’8 Columbian Exposition. 

Chicago, April 24, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co. 

Gents • After careful tests and comparl. 
sons we have decided to use “ Burnett’s 
Extracts ” exclusively in our ice creams, 
ices and pastry. Very respectfully, 

SCHAKPS & KAHN, 
Caterers for the *' Golden Gate Cafe,” 

Transportation Building; 
“ TROCADERO,” • ^ 

Cor. 16th Street and Michigan Avenue. 


•* The Great White Horse” Inn Co ., ) 
World’s Columbian v 
Exposition Grounds. ) 
Chicago, III., U. S. A., April 26, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : It being our aim to use noth- 
ing but the best, we have decided to use 
Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts exclusively. Id 
the Ice cream, cakes and pastries served in 
‘‘The Great White Horse” Inn, in the 
grounds of the World’s Columbian Expo- 
sition. Very truly yours, 

T. B. SEELEY, Manager, 
** The Great White Horse ” Inn Co. 


The Restaurants that have contracted to use Burnett’s Extracts, exclusively, 

are as follows : 


WELLINGTON CATERING CO„ 
“GREAT WHITE HORSE” INN, 
THE GARDEN CAFE, 

woman’s building. 


COLUMBIA CASINO CO., 

THE GOLDEN GATE CAFE, 

NEW ENGLAND CLAM BAKE CO., 
BANQUET HALL. 


JOSEPH BURNETT & CO., BOSTON, MASS. 



Wholesome soap is 
one that attacks the 
dirt, but not the liv- 
ing skin. It is Pears’. 

NOV "i 





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